transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. the cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain. a paper on craft gilds, read by the rev. w. cunningham, d.d., _at the thirteenth annual meeting of the society for the protection of ancient buildings._ there is, as i understand it, a double object in the work of this society; it interests itself in the preservation of ancient buildings, partly because they are monuments which when once destroyed can never be replaced, and which bear record of the ages in which they were made and the men who reared them; and in this sense all that survives from the past, good and bad, coarse or refined, has an abiding value. but to some folks there seems to be a certain pedantry in gathering or studying things that are important merely because they are curiosities, a certain fancifulness in the frame of mind which concentrates attention on the errors of printers, or the sports of nature, or the rubbish of the past. and much which has been preserved from the past is little better than rubbish, as the poet felt when he wrote: "rome disappoints me much; i hardly as yet understand, but rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it. all the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings, all the incongruous things of past incompatible ages seem to be treasured up here to make fools of the present and future." still, the view clough takes is very superficial; there is a real human interest about even the rubbish heaps of the past if we have knowledge enough to detect it; the dulness is in us who fail to recognise the interest which attaches to trifles from the past or to read the evidence they set before us. but there is another reason why the vestiges of bygone days claim our interest--not as mere curiosities, but as in themselves beautiful objects, excellently designed and skilfully fashioned. there are numberless arts in which the men of the past were adepts; their skill as builders is patent to all, but specialists are quite as enthusiastic over the work that was done by mediæval craftsmen in other departments. their wood-carving, and working in metals, the purity of their dyes, the beauty of their glass, these are things which move the admiration of competent critics in the present day. machinery may produce more rapidly, more cheaply, more regular work, of more equal quality, and perhaps of higher finish, but it is work that has lost the delicacy and grace of objects that were shaped by human hands and bear the direct impress of human care, and taste, and fancy. we may be interested in the preservation of the relics of the past, not merely as curiosities from bygone ages, but as examples of beautiful workmanship and skilled manipulation to which the craftsmen of the present day cannot attain. most englishmen--all those whose opinions are formed by the newspapers they read--are so proud of the vast progress that has been made in the present century, that they do not sufficiently attend to the curious fact that there are many arts that decay and are lost. in this country it appears that the art of glass-making was introduced more than once, and completely died out again; the same is probably true of cloth dressing and of dyeing. it seems to me a very curious problem to examine what were the causes which led to the disappearance of these particular industries. in each single case it is probably a very complicated problem to distinguish all the factors at work--what were the social or economic conditions that destroyed this or that useful art once introduced? but into such questions of detail i must not attempt to enter now. i wish to direct your attention to-day to a more general question, to an attempt to give a partial explanation, not of failure here and there, but of conspicuous success. in the thirteenth and fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a very high degree of skill was attained, not in one art only, but in many. it is at least worth while to look a little more closely at one group of the conditions which influenced the work of the times, and examine the organisations which were formed for controlling the training of workmen, for supervising the manner in which they lived, and maintaining a high standard of quality in the goods produced. there is no need to idealise the times when they were formed, or the men who composed them; the very records of craft gilds show that the mediæval workman was quite capable of scamping his work and getting drunk when opportunity tempted him. but the fact remains that a very great deal of first-rate work was done in many crafts, for portions of it still survive, and i cannot but believe that some of the credit is due to the gilds which set themselves to rule each craft, so that the work turned out should be a credit to those who made it. herein, as it seems to me, lies the secret of the importance of the craft gilds during the period of their useful activity. they were managed on the principle that "honourable thing was convenable;" that honesty was the best policy; the good of the trade meant its high reputation for sound work at fair prices. it has got another meaning to our ears; a time when trade is good means a time when it is more possible than usual to sell any sort of goods at high prices, and the craft gilds in their later days were contaminated by this lower view of industry. the ancient anecdote of the edinburgh glazier who was caught breaking the windows of peaceful inhabitants for "the good of the trade," may illustrate the modern sense of the phrase, while the conduct of the stalwart citizen who thrashed him within an inch of his life, and said at every blow "it's all for the good of the trade," was in closer accord with the disciplinary character of mediæval rules. i trust i have said enough to justify my selection of this topic as one which is not unfitting the attention of this society; the subject is a very wide one, and i think the treatment may be somewhat less diffuse if i draw most of my illustrations from a single centre of industry, and speak chiefly of the craft gilds of coventry. it is a town which i visited recently, and where, through the kindness of the town clerk and mr. w. g. fretton, the antiquary, i was able to make good use of the few hours i had to spend. it may be convenient too, to arrange the matter under the following heads:- i. the introduction of craft gilds. ii. the objects and powers of mediæval craft gilds. iii. the resuscitation of craft gilds. i. there is a certain amount of assumption in talking about the introduction of craft gilds, because it suggests the belief that they were not a native development. the word gild is, after all, a very vague term, much like our word association, and though we can prove the existence of many gilds before the conquest,--at cambridge and exeter and elsewhere,--their laws contain nothing that would justify us in regarding them as craft gilds. it is much more probable, though dr. gross, the greatest living authority on the subject, speaks with considerable reserve, that the hall where the men of winchester drank their own gild, or the land of the knights' gild at canterbury, belonged to bodies which had some supervision over the trade of the town--in fact, were early gilds merchant. but i know of no hint in any of the records or histories of the period before the norman conquest, that can be adduced to show that there were any associations of craftsmen formed to control particular industries. the earliest information which we get about such groups of men comes from london, where, as we learn, henry i. granted a charter to the weavers. it is pretty clear that by this document some authority was given to the weavers to control the making of cloth (and it possibly involved conditions which affected the import of cloth). it is certain that there was a long continued struggle between the weavers' gild and the citizens, which came to a peaceful close in the time of edward i. there were weavers' gilds also in a considerable number of other towns in the reign of henry ii.; beverley, marlborough, and winchester may be mentioned in particular, as the ordinances of these towns have survived, and there are incidental references which seem to show that the weavers, and the subsidiary crafts of fullers and dyers had, even in the twelfth century, considerable powers of regulating their respective trades. the evidence becomes more striking if we are justified in connecting with it the cases of other towns, where we find that regulations had been enforced with regard to cloth, and that the townsmen were anxious to set these regulations aside, and buy or sell cloth of any width. so far what we find is this; while we have no evidence of craft gilds before the conquest, we find indications of a very large number of gilds among the weavers and the subsidiary callings shortly after that date. but there is a further point; so far as we can gather, weaving before the conquest was a domestic art; we have no mention of weavers as craftsmen; the art was known, but it was practised as an employment for women in the house; but in the time of the conqueror and of his sons there was a considerable immigration of flemings, several of whom were particularly skilled in weaving woollen cloth; they settled in many towns in different parts of the country, and it seems not unnatural to conclude that weaving as an independent craft was introduced from the continent soon after the norman conquest. institutions analogous to craft gilds appear to have existed in some of the towns of northern france time out of mind, and some can apparently trace a more or less shadowy connection with the old roman collegia. putting all these matters together, it appears that craft organisation first shows itself in england in connexion with a trade which was probably introduced from abroad; and it seems not impossible that the continental artisans brought not only a knowledge of the art of weaving but certain habits of organisation with them. some sort of organisation was probably necessary for police and fiscal purposes if for none others. town life was a curiously confused chaos of conflicting authority; in london each ward was an independent unit, in chester and norwich the intermingling of jurisdictions seems very puzzling. the newcomers were not always welcomed by the older ratepayers, and they might perhaps find it convenient to secure a measure of _status_ by obtaining a royal charter for their gild. just as the jews or the hansards were in the city and yet not citizens, but had an independent footing, so to some extent were the weavers situated, and apparently for similar reasons; they seem to have had _status_ as weavers, which they held directly from the king, which marked them out from other townsmen, and which possibly delayed their complete amalgamation with the other inhabitants. there is yet another feature about these weavers' gilds; the business in which they are engaged was one which was from an early time regulated by royal authority. king richard i. issued an assize of cloth defining the length and breadth which should be manufactured.[1] the precise object of these regulations is not clear; they may have been made in the interests of the english consumer; they may have been made in the interest of the foreign purchaser, and the reputation of english goods abroad; they may have been framed in connexion with a protective policy, of which there are some signs. but amid much that is uncertain these three things seem pretty clear:- [1] richard of hoveden, rolls series, iv. 33. 1. that there were no craft gilds before the conquest. 2. that there were many craft gilds in connexion with the newly introduced weavers' craft in the twelfth century. 3. that they exercised their powers under royal authority in a craft which was the subject of royal regulation. so far for weavers; i wish now to turn to another craft in which we hear of craft gilds very early--the bakers. there is a curious parallelism between these two callings. in the first place baking was, on the whole, a domestic art before the conquest, not a separate employment; in the next place, it was a matter of royal regulation; the king's bakers doubtless provided the court supplies, and the gave their experience for the framing of the assize of bread, under henry ii. and under king john.[2] it may, i think, be said that in both of the trades in which gilds were first formed, there was felt to be a real need for regulation as to the quality of the goods sold to the public; and it also appears that this regulation was given under royal authority. so far the fact seems to me to be pretty clear; and it is at least more than probable that the form of association adopted--analogous as it was to associations already existing on the continent--had come over in the train of the conqueror. these few remarks may suffice in justification of the phrase the "introduction of craft gilds." [2] cambridge university library, mm i. 27. ii. in the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century there was a very rapid development of municipal life in england, and the burgesses in many towns obtained much larger powers of self-government than they had previously possessed. they became responsible for their own payments to the exchequer, and they obtained larger rights for regulating their own affairs; the town of coventry had indeed possessed very considerable municipal privileges from the time of henry i., but it shared in the general progress a century later, and the new requirements were marked by new developments. i have tried to show how the earlier craft gilds were formed under royal authority, but as the powers of local self-government increased and were consolidated, there was no need, and there was, perhaps, less opportunity, for direct royal interference in matters of internal trade. we thus find a new order of craft gilds springing up--they were called into being, like the old ones, for the purpose of regulating trade--but they exercised their powers under municipal, and not under royal authority. one craft gild of this type which still exists, and which is said to have been formed by the authority of the leet in the sixth year of king john, is the bakers' gild at coventry; it still consists of men who actually get their living by this trade, for it does not appear to have received so many love brothers as to destroy the original character of the body; it still has its hall--or, at least, room--and chest where the records are kept. there are, probably not many other bodies in the kingdom that have so long a history, and that have altered so little from their original character during all those centuries. none of the other coventry gilds, so far as i know, can at all compare with it. the weavers were a powerful body there in later times, but i doubt if there is any evidence of the existence of this and the allied trades in coventry before the fourteenth century; we may, perhaps, guess that it was one of the places where this trade settled under edward iii. but, apart from the question of origin, the bakers have a unique position. of some half-dozen other crafts which still maintain a formal existence, none can trace their history back beyond the time of edward iii., their members have no interest in the craft which they were empowered to regulate, and a tin box in a solicitor's office is the only outward and visible sign of their existence. such are the walkers and fullers, the shearmen and weavers, the fellmongers, the drapers, the mercers, and the clothiers. of the tanners i cannot speak so decidedly, as during a hurried visit to coventry i had no opportunity of examining their books. in looking more closely at the powers of mediæval craft gilds, it is necessary to distinguish a little; a craft gild was a gild which had authority to regulate some particular craft in a given area. i do not, therefore, want to dwell on the features which were common to all gilds, and which can be traced in full detail in the admirable volume edited by the late mr. toulmin smith for the early english text society. i desire to limit consideration to the powers that were special to craft gilds. like other gilds they had a religious side, in some cases strongly developed, and the members engaged in common acts of worship, especially in common prayers and masses for departed brethren. like other gilds they had the character of a friendly society, and gave loans to needy brethren, or bestowed alms on the poor. like other gilds they had their feasts, when the brethren drank their gild, and they had hoods, or livery, which they wore at their assemblies. like other gilds they took their share in civic festivities and provided pageants at considerable cost; but all these common bonds, important as they were in cementing men into a real fellowship, and in calling forth such different interests and activities among the members, were of a pious, social, or charitable character. there was no reason why such associations should not be multiplied on all sides; even when a gild consisted of men who followed the same craft it was not a craft gild. the case of the journeymen tailors in london who assembled at the black friars church may be taken as conclusive on this point. a gild was not a craft gild unless duly empowered to regulate a particular craft; it might be called into existence for this purpose, or an existing gild might be empowered to exercise such functions, much as the brotherhood of s. thomas à becket was changed into the mercers' company. the important thing about a craft gild was that it had been empowered to exercise authority in a given area and over certain workmen, as the weavers' gilds had been empowered by charter from henry i., and as the bakers were empowered by the court leet at coventry, in the sixth year of king john. two points were specially kept in view in framing any set of regulations. they were, first, the quality of the goods supplied; and, second, the due training of men to execute their work properly--admirable objects certainly. the machinery which was organised for attaining these objects was also well devised; the men who were thoroughly skilled, and were masters in the craft, had the duty of training apprentices, and the wardens had the right of examining goods exposed for sale, and of making search in houses where the trade was being carried on--again, an excellent arrangement where it could be satisfactorily carried out. and on the whole it seems as if the scheme had worked well, for this simple reason--that while it was maintained, so much work of excellent design and quality was executed. i wish to lay stress on this, because the historian of craft gilds is apt to overlook it. when craft gilds appeared on the stage of history, it was because something was out of gearing, and the institution was working badly. one is apt to infer that since they worked badly whenever we hear of them, they also worked badly when we do not; but i am inclined to interpret the periods of silence differently, and to regard them as times when the organisations were wisely managed, and when the craft gilds enjoyed the proverbial happiness of those who have no history. there were, however, three different dangers of disagreement, and possible quarrel:--(1) between a craft gild on one hand and the municipal authorities on the other; (2) between one craft gild and another; (3) between different members of a craft gild. 1. it is obvious that the gilds, if they were to exercise any real authority, required to have _exclusive_ powers within a given district; it is also obvious that these exclusive powers might be misused, so as to be mischievous to the consumers of the goods; a craft gild might take advantage of its monopoly to the gain of the members and the impoverishing of the citizens. the feeling of the citizens would be that the goods supplied by the members of the gild were bad and were dear at the price. it was therefore of the first importance that the citizens should be, in the last resort, able to control the gild, and resume the privileges which their officers exercised. there is a well-known case, which is detailed in mr. toulmin smith's book, which shows how the tailors of exeter enjoyed a charter from the crown, and how much trouble they gave to the local authorities under edward iv.; but it was a matter of common complaint that in many places the gilds had charters from great men which exempted them from proper control.[3] even in coventry, where there does not appear to have been interference from without, it was necessary for the leet to keep a tight hand on the craft gilds. an ordinance of 8 henry v. runs as follows:--"also that no man of any craft make laws or other ordinance among them but it be overseen by the mayor and his council; and if it be reasonable ordinance and lawful it shall be affirmed, or else it shall be corrected by the mayor and his peers."[4] at a later date we have another entry of the same kind:--"also that the mayor, warden, and bailiffs, taking to the mayor eight or twelve of the general council, to come afore them the wardens of all the crafts of the city with their ordinances, touching their crafts and their articles, and the points that be lawful, good, and honest for the city be allowed them, all other thrown aside and had force none, and that they make new ordinances against the laws in oppression of the people, upon pain of imprisonment." in some other towns the craftsmen had to yield up their powers annually and receive them back again from the municipal authority; this was the case with the cordwainers at exeter,[5] but the coventry people did not insist on anything so strict. [3] rot. parl., ii. 331. [4] leet book, £37. [5] toulmin smith, "english gilds," p. 332. 2. the difficulties between one craft gild and another might arise in various ways; as time went on or trade developed there was an increasing differentiation of employment, and it was not always clear whether the original gild had supervision over all branches of the trade. thus in london the weavers' gild claimed to exercise supervision over the linen as well as over the woollen cloth manufactures, and this claim was insisted on on the ground that the two trades were quite distinct. in coventry the worsted weavers, the linen weavers, and the silk weavers were one body, in later times at any rate, though the arts cannot be precisely similar. in other cases there was a question as to whether different processes involved in the production of one complete article should be reckoned as separate crafts or not. thus the fullers were organised in independence of the shearmen in 1438; and during the fifteenth century the sub-division of gilds appears to have gone very rapidly at coventry, as there were something like twenty-three of them at that time; at the same time from the repeated power which is given to the fullers to form a fellowship of their own,[6] it appears that they were from time to time re-absorbed by the parent gild. perhaps an even better illustration of the difficulty of defining the precise processes which certain gilds might supervise would be found in the history of the leather trades in london--tanners, cordwainers, saddlers, and so forth. but enough may have been said to show how easy it was for disputes to arise between one or more craft gilds as to their respective powers. [6] leet book, f. 400; may 3, 1547. quoted by mr. fretton, memorials of fullers' guild, page 11. 3. there were also disputes within the gilds between different members. (_a_) there was at least some risk of malversation of funds by the master of the craft gild; and strict regulations were laid down by the fellmongers and cappers as to the time when the amounts were to be rendered and passed, but a much greater number of the ordinances deal with the respective duties of masters and apprentices and masters and journeymen. (_b_) the question of apprenticeship was of primary importance, as the skill of the next generation of workmen depended on the manner in which it was enforced. there are a good many ordinances of the coventry cappers in 1520. no one was to have more than two apprentices at a time, and he was to keep them for seven years, but there was to be a month of trial before sealing; nobody was to take apprentices who had not sufficient sureties that he would perform his covenant. if the apprentice complained that he had not sufficient "finding," and the master was in fault, the apprentice was to be removed on the third complaint, and the master was handicapped in getting another in his place. once a year the principal master of the craft was to go round the city and examine every man's apprentice, and see they were properly taught. the clothiers, in regulations which i believe to be of about the same date, though they are incorporated with rules of a later character, had a system of allowing the apprentice to be turned over to another master if his own master had no work, so that he might not lose his time--this was a system which was much abused in the eighteenth century: the master was to teach the apprentice truly, and two apprentices were not to work at the same loom unless one of them had served for five years. no master was to teach any one who was not apprenticed, and he was to keep the secrets of the craft; this was a provision which constantly occurs in the ordinances. some such exclusive rule was necessary if they were to secure the thorough competence, in all branches of the art, of the men who lived by it. in the case of the coventry clothiers there is an exception which is of interest; the master might give instruction to persons who were not apprenticed as "charity to poor and impotent people for their better livelihood." (_c_) the limitation of the number of apprentices, though it was desirable for the training of qualified men, was frequently urged in the interests of the journeymen. there had been frequent complaint on the part of journeymen that the masters overstocked their shops with apprentices, and that those who had served their time could get no employment from other masters, while they also complained that unnecessary obstacles were put in the way of their doing work on their own account. one or two illustrations of these points may be given from the coventry crafts; the fullers in 1560 would not allow any journeyman to work on his own account. the clothiers in the beginning of the sixteenth century ordained that none shall set any journeyman on work till he is fairly parted from his late master, or if he remains in his late master's debt; journeymen were to have ten days' notice, or one cloth to weave before leaving a master; their wages were to be paid weekly if they wished it, and they were to make satisfaction for any work they spoiled. similarly the cappers in 1520 would not allow journeymen to work in their houses. some of the most interesting evidence in regard to the grievances of the journeymen comes from the story of a dispute in the weaving trade in the early part of the fifteenth century. "the said parties--both masters and journeymen--on the mediation of their friends, and by the mandate and wish of the worshipful mayor, entered into a final agreement." the rules to which they agreed throw indirect light on the nature of the points in dispute. it was evidently a time when the trade was developing rapidly, and when an employing class of capitalists and clothiers was springing up among the weavers. it was agreed that any who could use the art freely might have as many looms, both linen and woollen, in his cottage, and also have as many apprentices as he liked. every cottager or journeyman who wished to become a master might do so in paying twenty shillings. besides this, the journeymen were allowed to have their own fraternity, but they were to pay a shilling a year to the weavers, and a shilling for every member they admitted.[7] on the whole it appears that the journeymen in this trade obtained a very considerable measure of independence, but this was somewhat exceptional, and on the whole it appears that the grievances and disabilities under which journeymen laboured had a very injurious effect on the trade of many towns, and apparently on that of coventry, during the sixteenth century. there was a very strong incentive for journeymen to go and set up in villages or outside the areas where craft gilds had jurisdiction, and there is abundant evidence[8] that this sort of migration took place on a very large scale. i should be inclined to lay very great stress on this factor as a principal reason for the decay of craft gilds under henry viii., so that edward vi.'s act gave them a death-blow. they no longer exerted an effective supervision, because in so many cases the trade had migrated to new districts, where there was no authority to regulate it. this is, at any rate, the best solution i can offer of the remarkable manner in which craft gilds disappeared, as effective institutions, about the middle of the sixteenth century. their religious side was sufficiently pronounced to bring them within the scope of the great act of confiscation, by which edward vi. despoiled the gilds; but there was an effort made to spare them then, and i cannot but believe that if they had had any real vitality a large number would have survived, as some, like the bakers and fullers at coventry, actually did. at the same time, it appears to be true that these cases are somewhat exceptional and that the craft gilds, as effective institutions for regulating industry, disappeared. part of the evidence for this opinion comes from coventry itself, for we find that a deliberate and conscious effort was made to resuscitate the gilds in 1584. it is of this resuscitation, involving as it does a previous period of decay, that i now wish to speak. [7] leet book, f. 27. [8] worcester, 25 h. viii. c. 18. iii. the disappearance of the craft gilds appears to have been connected with one of their accidental features, as i may call them--their common worship. the attempted resuscitation at coventry was due to another--to the fact that each craft provided a certain amount of pageantry for the town. i suspect that the so-called "mistery plays" were the plays organised by the different "misteries" or crafts. the chester plays, the coventry plays, and the york plays,[9] have been published, and they present features which force comparison with the passion play which is being given this year at ober ammergau; and they were most attractive performances. the accounts of the various trading bodies show that these pageants were continued through the sixteenth century; they were suspended for eight years previous to 1566, and again in 1580 and three following years, when the preachers inveighed against the pageants, even though "there was no papistry in them"; revived once more in 1584, they were finally discontinued in 1591.[10] [9] recently edited by miss l. t. smith for the clarendon press. [10] t. sharp, "pageants" (1815), p. 12, 39, and 39. i have lately seen the originals of the dialogue of the weavers' pageant, with the separate parts written out for the individual actors. during the fifteenth century, these pageants were performed with much success, and several of the smaller trades appear to have been united for the purpose of performing some pageant together. in 1566 and in 1575 queen elizabeth visited coventry, and the pageants were performed, and with the view of reviving the diminished glories of the towns considerable pains were taken to reorganise the old crafts; thus the bakers and smiths joined in producing a pageant in 1506.[11] the fullers appear to have been reorganised in 1586, and there was a very distinct revival of the old corporations about that time. this same element, the manner in which the crafts had contributed to the local pageants, was noticeable in connection with the organisation of the bodies at norwich; and i cannot but connect the resuscitation of some of the coventry gilds at this time with the desire to perpetuate these entertainments; certain common lands had been enclosed by the town to bear another part of the expense.[12] though the interest in the pageants marks the beginning of this revival at coventry, it yet appears that during the seventeenth century it continued. there was some general cause at work connected with the condition of industry which called out a new set of efforts at industrial regulation, but the power which called these gilds or companies into being was no longer merely municipal; they rely, as in the earliest instances, on royal or parliamentary authority. it is by no means easy to see what was the precise motive in each case of the incorporating of new industrial companies in the seventeenth century. the colchester bay-makers introduced a new trade, so, perhaps, did the kidderminster carpet-weavers, but the movement at this time appears to be connected with the fact that industry was becoming specialised and localised. i am inclined to suspect that the companies of the seventeenth century differ from the craft gilds of the fifteenth, partly, at least, in this way, that whereas the former were the local organisations for regulating various trades in one town, the latter were the bodies, organised by royal authority for regulating each industry in that part of the country where it could be best pursued. it was at this date that the sheffield cutlers were incorporated, and indeed a large number of organisations in different towns. several of the coventry gilds, notably the drapers and the clothiers, were incorporated by royal charters during the seventeenth century, and if we turned to a northern town like preston, we might be inclined to say that this was the real era when associations for industrial regulation flourished and abounded. [11] fretton, "memorials of bakers' gild," mid-england, p. 124. [12] sharp, "pageants," 12. it is no part of my purpose to speak of the decay of these newly formed or newly resuscitated companies as it occurred in the eighteenth century. i have endeavoured to indicate the excellent aims which these institutions set before them, and the success which attended their efforts for a time. at the same time, it is a significant fact that they failed to maintain themselves as effective institutions in the sixteenth century, and when they were resuscitated they failed to maintain themselves as useful institutions in the eighteenth. partly, as i believe, for good, and partly, as we here recognise, for evil, business habits have so changed that whatever is done for the old object--maintaining quality and skill--must be done in a new way. the power which we possess of directing and controlling the forces of nature has altered the position of the artisan, and made him a far less important factor in production. the maintenance of personal skill, the unlimited capacity for working certain materials, is no longer of such primary importance for industrial success as was formerly the case. there is another--perhaps a greater--difficulty in the diffusion of a wider and more cosmopolitan spirit; the sympathies of the old brethren for one another were strong, but they were intensely narrow. no town can be so isolated now, or kindle such intense local attachments as did the cities of the middle ages. there has been loss enough in the destruction of these gilds, but we cannot, by looking back upon them, reverse the past or re-create that which has been destroyed through the growth of the larger life we enjoy to-day. let us rather remember them as showing what could be accomplished in the past, and as pointing towards something we ought to try to accomplish in some new fashion to-day. when we see that the mediæval workman was a man, not a mere hand; that in close connexion with his daily tasks the whole round of human aspiration could find satisfaction; that he was called with others to common worship, called with others to common feasts and recreations, and encouraged to do his best at his work, we feel how poor and empty, in comparison, is the life that is led by the english artisan to-day. but if there is a better and more wholesome life before the labourer in days to come, if new forms of association are to do the work which was done by the gilds of old, we may trust that those who organise them will bear in mind not only the successes, but the failures of the past, and learn to avoid the mistakes which wrecked craft gilds not once only, but twice. images of public domain material from the google print project.) the influence and development of english gilds. london: c. j. clay and sons, cambridge university press warehouse, ave maria lane. cambridge: deighton, bell, and co. leipzig: f. a. brockhaus. new york: macmillan and co. cambridge historical essays. no. v. the influence and development of english gilds: as illustrated by the history of the craft gilds of shrewsbury. by francis aidan hibbert, b.a., of st john's college, cambridge; assistant master in denstone college. _thirlwall dissertation_, 1891. cambridge: at the university press. 1891 [_all rights reserved._] cambridge: printed by c. j. clay, m.a. and sons, at the university press. _to the rev. d. edwardes, m.a., head master of denstone, in remembrance of much kindness and encouragement._ preface. i should explain that, in the present essay, i have restricted myself to associations which had for their object the regulation of trade. frith gilds and religious or social gilds have received only passing notice. the merchant gild is too wide a subject to be treated in an essay such as this. moreover the records of the shrewsbury merchant gild are too meagre to afford much information, and i would therefore have gladly passed over the whole question in silence but that without some notice of it the essay would have seemed incomplete. my attention has thus been concentrated on the craft gilds, and on the later companies which arose out of these. it is greatly to be regretted that we have no work on gilds which deals with the subject from an english point of view, and traces the development of these pre-eminently english institutions according to its progress on english soil. the value of dr brentano's extremely able essay is very largely diminished, for englishmen, not only because he is continually attempting to trace undue analogies between the gilds and trades unions, but still more because he has failed to appreciate the spirit which animated english merchants and craftsmen in their relations with one another, and so has missed the line of gild development in england. if he had not confined his attention, so far as english gilds are concerned, solely to the london companies he could hardly have failed to discover his mistake. something has been done to set the facts of the case in a clearer light by dr cunningham briefly in his _growth of english industry and commerce_[1]. but it is to be feared that mr j. r. green's _history_ is so deservedly popular, and mr george howell's _conflicts of capital and labour_ is so otherwise reliable, that views differing from those which these writers set forward--following dr brentano as it appears--stand little chance of being generally known. great as is the weight which must attach to such important authorities, i have endeavoured--by looking at the facts in my materials from an independent standpoint--to avoid being unduly influenced by their conclusions, or by a desire to find analogies where none exist. the materials from which i have worked call for but little description. they are simply the records of the shrewsbury gilds--either in their original form as preserved in the town museum and library, or as printed in the shropshire archæological society's _transactions_. though my view has been thus confined it has been kept purposely so. english local history is its own best interpreter, and although in some instances the documents have required illustrating and supplementing from extraneous sources, these occasions have been few. at the same time i have not omitted to notice how the effects of national events were felt in provincial changes, and i have especially striven to point out how the shrewsbury records bear upon the various theories which have been put forward respecting gilds. writing thus in a historical rather than an antiquarian spirit i have not considered it necessary to overburden the pages with needless footnotes referring repeatedly simply to the records of the shrewsbury gilds. _october, 1890._ note.--_the gild merchant_, by charles gross, ph.d. (oxford, clarendon press, 1890), appeared after the above had been written and the essay sent in. i have since had the advantage of reading it. the general conclusions at which the writer arrives are so similar to those i had already formed, that i have not found it necessary to alter what i had written. i have however to some extent made use of the material he has brought together in vol. ii., chiefly by way of strengthening the authorities in the footnotes to which reference is made in the text. extract from the regulations for the thirlwall prize. "there shall be established in the university a prize, called the 'thirlwall prize,' to be awarded for dissertations involving original historical research." "the prize shall be open to members of the university who, at the time when their dissertations are sent in, have been admitted to a degree, and are of not more than four years' standing from admission to their first degree." "those dissertations which the adjudicators declare to be deserving of publication shall be published by the university singly or in combination, in an uniform series, at the expense of the fund, under such conditions as the syndics of the university press shall from time to time determine." contents. pages chapter i. introductory 1-6 chapter ii. the merchant gild 7-29 note 1. chronological table of merchant gilds 24-28 note 2. list of trades and professions 28-29 chapter iii. the craft gilds 30-54 note 1. indenture of apprenticeship (1414) 52-53 note 2. oath of freemen 53-54 chapter iv. the early history of the gilds 55-76 chapter v. reconstruction of the gild system 77-97 chapter vi. the degeneracy of the companies 98-112 chapter vii. shrewsbury show 113-127 chapter viii. the end of the companies 128-144 appendix i. non-gildated tradesmen 145-156 appendix ii. authorities cited 157-159 index 160-168 note. on page 26 liverpool should be inserted. the charter was granted in 1229, by the king. chapter i. introductory. [sidenote: _local life in england always varied._] in these days of convenience and easy transit, when distance has been annihilated by the telegraph wire and the express train, we can hardly realise, even with an effort, the extent to which such changes have revolutionised the social life of englishmen. of local sentiment there can be now but little, yet local sentiment has played a greater part in our history than perhaps any other motive. the england of to-day is little more than a great suburb of its capital. yet it is a peculiar feature of the england of the past that its local life was always singularly varied, not only in the middle ages but down to quite recent times. indeed the characteristic is still more than traceable in some of our less busy districts. in the past, too, some parts possessed the feature in a more marked degree than others. we should naturally expect that few towns would have a stronger infusion of local feeling than shrewsbury. through all its history it has indeed been marked by strong individuality. [sidenote: _early growth of shrewsbury._] situated in the midst of the marches of wales, the centre round which long waged the struggle for the fair lands westward of the severn, its strong walls and insular position soon gave it a marked commercial superiority over the surrounding country. in consequence we find shrewsbury at an early date considerably more advanced than the unprotected land outside, which lay open to the ravages of the welsh. this condition of affairs, the reverse of favourable for commercial advancement, continued to depress the neighbourhood after edward the first's conquest of the principality, for the disorders of the lords marchers kept the borders in a state of continual alarm, and prevented the inhabitants from settling down to any regular and profitable industry[2]. henry iv. on the death of glendower effected the reconquest of wales, and enacted severe laws against the inhabitants. the only result was, however, the organisation of robber bands whose definite object was to plunder and harass more completely their english neighbours. the evil became so intolerable that a special court had to be erected to remove it, and in 1478 was formed the court of the president and marches of wales. by dint of powers of summary jurisdiction over disturbers of the public peace, a diminution was effected in the disorders, and the border lands were able to participate in the increase of trade which was such a marked feature of the fourteenth century. in spite of the temporary shock given to industry by the reformation, the district had, by the latter part of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, quite recovered from the welsh ravages, and its prosperity at this time was very remarkable. the fertility of the district brought wealth to the market towns, and provided a wide area of comfortable purchasers for the products of their industries. the expansion of the welsh cloth trade gave rise to a twofold struggle. there was firstly a strenuous effort of the border towns to keep it to themselves, and secondly a private quarrel as to which of them should engross the market. shrewsbury eventually secured the monopoly after an arduous contest, and the importance of the town was thus considerably enhanced. [sidenote: _its later prosperity._] the internal history of its gilds will show how peculiarly the state of shrewsbury illustrates the period of quiet prosperity before the introduction of machinery broke in upon the comfortable life of provincial england. the county towns then possessed an importance of which they have since been shorn by various causes[3]. each was the capital of its district, filling the part of a distant metropolis to which neither the country gentleman nor the wealthy burgess could expect to go more than once or twice in a lifetime. shrewsbury, in particular, was possessed of features which serve not only to make it especially typical of the social habits of the period, but which at the same time give it an interest exceptionally its own[4]. [sidenote: _its stationary condition in recent times._] and when the introduction of machinery transformed the face of england to such a large extent, the changes which it brought to shrewsbury were extremely slight. local life was strong. the town was slow to accommodate itself to new conditions of industry. its gilds and companies maintained their vigour to the end. their yearly pageant continued to our own day. the timbered houses which the substantial tradesmen built in the days of their prosperity are still, many of them, standing. the streets of the town have been only gradually altered and improved. they still follow the old lines, often inconvenient, but always interesting: they still are called by their old names, full of confusion to the stranger, full of significance to the student. [sidenote: _importance of history of its gilds._] [sidenote: _their quiet development._] shrewsbury, then, exhibits a character eminently its own, from whatever point we view its history. but it is a distinction of similarity rather than the prominence of singularity. the progress of the town has gone on quietly and calmly, seldom interrupted and never forced. the history of its gilds must of necessity present similar features. it will be a record of silent development, often leaving few traces, yet not the less evident to careful observation. [sidenote: _peculiarities._] but it is also a history in studying which we must be particularly on our guard against being led astray by the analogy of similar institutions in other parts of england or on the continent. the desire to arrive at, or to conform to, general conclusions often blinds writers to the fact to which we have already drawn attention, namely, that local life in england was always varied; that each town and district had its own strongly-marked peculiarities. bearing this in mind, deviations--apparent or real--from the ordinary course of gild history will cause us no surprise. the shearmen's maypole quarrel[5] with the bailiffs is almost the only trace of serious conflict at shrewsbury between the municipal authorities[6] and the companies until the seventeenth century. there are no signs of the rise of yeomen gilds[7] in earlier or later years, though evidence in plenty is found of the complete disregard shown by the masters for the interests of the journeymen[8]. on the other hand, so far from the court of assistants being a late creation we meet with it at shrewsbury very early in gild history. [sidenote: _especial points of value._] it will also be a record rich in illustrations of contemporary social life[9]. the closeness of relationship between religion and the ordinary business pursuits of the mediæval burgess; the wide public influence exercised by the gilds in their earlier years, and the remarkable family feeling they maintained within the boundaries of the old towns even down to the time when the companies had become utterly demoralised, will be exemplified not less remarkably than the continuity of the gild sentiment through the shocks of the reformation period, through the economic changes of elizabeth, and even (in some sort) through the reforms of 1835. it is a history too which will help us to understand a problem of considerable difficulty. we shall not only see the degenerated societies of capitalists in full vigour down to the date of their enforced termination as trading companies, but we shall also be enabled to perceive how it was that they managed to retain their prejudicial and antiquated privileges to the very end of their existence. it is indeed in the light which their history throws on the conditions of provincial trade and the social customs of an ordinary provincial town during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that its special importance lies. the rapid progress which marked the commencement of that period, not less than the torpor and decay which characterised the corporate towns at its close will be found to be eminently exemplified in the history of the shrewsbury gilds. chapter ii. the merchant gild. [sidenote: _universality of gild feeling._] dr brentano[10] is particularly desirous to make it clear that he considers england "the birthplace of gilds." but it is scarcely necessary to point out that the conception of the gild belongs to no particular age and to no particular country. not to insist unduly on the universality of an institution from which some writers have derived the gilds, and to which they certainly bear considerable resemblance, the family--common to humanity itself--we note that the greeks had their [greek: eranoi][11] and their [greek: xunômosiai][12], and the romans their _collegia opificum_[13], each exhibiting not a few of the features of the mediæval gilds. _corps des métiers_ existed in france in very early times, perhaps in direct continuation of the roman institutions, and played a great part in the beginnings of many towns[14]. so early as to be anterior to the earliest known frith gilds, that is to say in the latter half of the seventh century, a regularly organised system of confederation existed among the anglo-saxon monasteries throughout england, according to the rules of which the united abbeys and religious houses undertook to pray for the members, living and departed, of one another[15]: [sidenote: _english and continental gilds._] each of these associations, so various in date and object, bore great resemblance to the gilds of later times, according as the latter are considered in the light of some one or other of their functions: now it is the common feast, now it is the possession of corporate property, here it is the union of all the workmen of a craft into one sodality, there it is the association of neighbours for mutual responsibility and protection; now it is the confraternity "in omni obsequio religionis." such a tendency to association is simply the result of man's gregarious nature, and there is no need to restrict what is found alike in all peoples and all periods. but it is none the less true that the tendency has been more strongly marked in england than elsewhere. the earliest gild statutes which have come down to us are english[16], and the development of gilds in england proceeded according to its normal course without being diverted and confused by external and disturbing circumstances. the real history of gilds will thus be the history of _english_ gilds, not of those of the continent, whose records detail rather a bitter struggle between rival classes in the towns[17]. if the constitutional importance of the gilds was thus greater on the continent than it was in england[18], this was because _there_ a social institution was dragged out of its proper sphere of action, and in the arena of politics was shorn of the most attractive of its features. [sidenote: _value of history of local gilds._] in these pages we shall be concerned solely with examples drawn from the history of our own country. where necessary reference will be made to the institutions of other towns, but in general our attention will be concentrated on one provincial borough only--a town, as we have seen, well calculated to illustrate the social life of england in the past. it is only by working out the several departments of local municipal history that anything like a complete view of the subject can be ultimately obtained[19]. in the following chapters an attempt will be made to contribute something towards such a consummation. the records of the later craft gilds at shrewsbury are entirely satisfactory, but unfortunately those of the merchant gild are of the most meagre description. they throw but little light therefore on its functions or history, and still less on the interesting question as to the precise nature of the relationship which existed between the gilda mercatoria and the communa. our attention will consequently be chiefly directed to an examination of the history and development of the _craft gilds_. a few remarks, more or less general in their scope, on the merchant gild seem however to be called for, in anticipation of the history of the later trade associations. [sidenote: _growth of towns in twelfth century._] in england, as elsewhere, the growth of the towns was one of the most marked features of the twelfth century. this was due to various causes. william's conquest had opened up increased facilities for communication with the continent: the norman soldiers brought skilled norman traders in their train, and so war ministered to commerce just as subsequently the crusades were largely helpful to the growth of trade and the progress of the towns. the vigorous administration of henry i. and henry ii. had also facilitated the expansion of industry. henry i. favoured the rising towns both because of their commercial utility and in order to make use of their counterbalancing influence against the power of the barons. shrewsbury he took into his own hands, having enforced the surrender of the town from the rebellious robert de belesme. the amendment of the currency and the organisation of the courts of king's bench and exchequer were also as favourable to material prosperity as were the legal reforms of henry ii. afterwards. the circuits of the justices itinerant were restored, and appeals to the king in council were established. a further weakening of baronial power was also effected by the destruction of the castles which the lawlessness of stephen's tenure of the sovereignty had permitted; while the introduction of scutage made the king in some measure independent of the feudal forces by enabling him to call in the support of mercenary troops. on the other hand the assize of arms restored the national militia to its old important place. shrewsbury had seemed to be depressed by the conquest. the town had been granted, in the first instance, to roger de montgomery, whose two great works, his castle and his abbey, yet remain. both the earl and his works were at first the cause of complaint. in domesday book it is pointed out that montgomery had destroyed 51 houses to make room for his castle; to the abbey he had granted 39 burgesses; 43 houses in the town were held by normans and exempted from taxation. consequently, as the same sum was required from the town as had been paid _tempore regis edwardi_, the burden fell with undue hardship on the english inhabitants who remained. but the ultimate result of both castle and monastery was beneficial to the town. the latter attracted trade and the former protected it[20], and shrewsbury early became a commercial centre of some importance. [sidenote: _they differed little from country, except in possession of a merchant gild_] the towns at this period differed but little from the country. they both engaged in agriculture as well as trade; they were alike governed by a royal officer, or by some lord's steward. in the towns the houses were of course more closely clustered, and a further difference arose afterwards in the fact that a freeman in the town, when admitted to the gild, might be landless[21]. the chief distinction indeed between town and country lay in the fact that the former had a merchant gild. [sidenote: _to preserve peace._] the origin of such commercial unions is lost in the dimness of antiquity. even in anglo-saxon times dover had its gildhall, and canterbury and london are said to have been also possessed of trading associations. they came into being at first probably to preserve peace. at the date of the conquest the right of jurisdiction almost invariably belonged to whoever held the town, but we cannot conceive that roger montgomery's successors would be likely to concern themselves overmuch with internal police. as a fact it would rest with the burghers themselves to protect their goods and persons from mishap. [sidenote: _a.-s. frith gilds._] [sidenote: _trade regulations._] [sidenote: _royal authorisation: earliest mention._] frith gilds, with much the same objects, had been common anterior to the conquest[22]. in most places where there was a market it was essential that some recognised authority should be in existence to keep the peace, as well as to be witness to sales[23]. the "laws of the city of london" were apparently drawn up with the express design of supplementing defective law[24]. they exhibit to us a complete authority for the supervision of trade, corresponding to the later merchant gild in nearly every particular: there is the common stock, the head man, the periodical meetings at which "byt-fylling" plays its usual important part[25]. the "ordinance which king ethelred and his witan ordained as 'frith-bot' for the whole nation" imposed the duty of pursuing offenders on the town to which they belonged[26]. there was thus evidently some organisation within the boundaries of the town, and as the chief of the burgesses forming this organisation were also the chief merchants (since trade was the _raison-d'être_ of the towns) it soon began naturally to frame commercial regulations[27]. so the town gild became, when, after the norman conquest, trade had assumed important dimensions, the gilda mercatoria with exclusive powers and privileges by royal charter. the earliest unmistakable mention of a merchant gild is at the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century[28]. under henry i. grants of merchant gilds appear in one or two of the charters granted to towns[29], and under henry ii., richard and john they become more frequent[30]. shrewsbury was one of the few which had the merchant gild confirmed as early as the reign of henry ii.[31] by these charters what had originally been a voluntary association now became an exclusive body to which trade was restricted. important as were the advantages gained by the procuring of such royal authorisation, these charters only set the seal to what had existed in effect before. the landed and mercantile interests were practically identical within the towns: the great merchants were also the great landowners; the gilda mercatoria could thus frame regulations which it would be extremely difficult for any trader to disregard[32]. [sidenote: _functions._] besides, the benefits which resulted from common trading would be too obvious for any individual who could procure entrance into the gild to abstain from doing so. it was far more to the common interest that one representative should buy for all and then divide the purchase equitably than that each should compete with each and so minister simply to the profit of the seller. there are several examples of such combined purchasing by a royal or municipal officer in towns where there was no merchant gild[33]. it was however generally effected by means of the latter, the granting of which meant the according of permission to the members to settle for themselves their custom in buying and selling. the retail trade within the town was restricted to their own members individually, and the wholesale trade coming _to_ the town was reserved to themselves collectively. members of the merchant gild alone might sell within the walls, and traders coming from without might sell only to the merchant gild. there was no danger then as there would be now of such a practice driving all trade away from the town, for the restrictions in force at one place would be paralleled almost exactly in every other. at the periodical fairs alone did free trade prevail. but the exclusive privileges might be exceedingly harmful if the main body of householders were not members of the merchant gild. it was then the fact that the restricted trading was not "to the advantage of the community of the borough but only to the advantage of those who are of the said society[34]." when however the great majority of the householders were members of the trading corporation the arrangement would work well and beneficially for the whole town. [sidenote: _all burgesses are gildsmen._] the effect of the granting of royal authorisation was, therefore, to finally draw all burgesses into the gild, for all townsmen of any importance were traders. the records of the shrewsbury merchant gild, though of the scantiest description, are sufficient to show how comprehensive was its range. all branches of trade were, at least down to the time of edward i., represented in it[35]; it comprised every rank and degree, proportioning its fines and payments accordingly. the progress of the fusion of races is shown by the lists of names, which are both saxon and norman in indiscriminate order. [sidenote: _duties of gildsmen._] [sidenote: _tendency to amalgamation of gild and communa._] so closely indeed did the practical boundaries of gild and town coincide that in many places the former seemed to become the communa, when the kings began to grant charters of incorporation. richard i. can even say that all the privileges of his charter are granted "_civibus nostris wintoniæ de gilda mercatorum_[36]," seeming to imply that at winchester at least there were no citizens extraneous to the merchant gild. the villain flying from his lord could only be admitted to freedom through the machinery of the merchant gild. the merchant gild was ready to the hand of the burgesses as a centre, and the only centre, round which to rally when engaged in defending their liberties or in procuring fresh privileges. on the other hand the existence of such a secure and wealthy body, which would be at all times able to ensure payment of the _firma burgi_, and the frequent royal assessments which were laid upon the towns, would be an additional inducement to the kings in granting the charters of liberties. glanvill, in the time of henry ii., doubtless already looked on the merchant gild and the communa as, for all practical purposes, identical[37], from which the inference seems to lie that the possession of such a gild had thus early come to be looked upon as the sign and symbol of municipal independence. it is true that a town _might_ become a free borough without possessing a merchant gild, but this would be an exception to the general rule. it would be similar to the case of a free borough not holding the _firma burgi_: such a contingency was possible but unusual. to the mind of the lawyer therefore the possession of a merchant gild seemed the necessary precursor of a royal charter of privileges. and in practice this was found to be, speaking generally, the case. this apparent identity of burgesses and gildsmen would find palpable expression in the fact of the gild hall becoming the town hall. this naturally did not take place to any considerable extent before the 14th century, though during that period it became fairly common. it may have been that the merchant gild permitted the use of its hall for public purposes, at first only occasionally and then more and more frequently until at length what had been exceptional became normal (either through precedent or purchase[38]); certain it is that the two names of gild hall and town hall became practically synonymous in about the 14th and 15th centuries. this had been foreshadowed at an early date. domesday book spoke of the "gihalla burgensium[39]" at dover. at shrewsbury, in a charter of 1445, the town hall is called, as it is at this day, the gildhall. [sidenote: _but all gildsmen not burgesses._] but the _ideas_ of gild-members and townsmen were long kept separate. burgess-ship depended on residence[40] and the possession of a burgage-tenement, but not so membership of the merchant gild, which often comprised among its numbers many outsiders[41]. in this way the two bodies were clearly distinguished. at ipswich it was ordered in john's charter[42] that the statutes of the town were to be kept distinct from those of the gild "as is elsewhere used in cities and boroughs where there is a gild merchant," for the latter would probably consist of both "de hominibus civitatis" and also "de aliis mercatoribus comitatus[43]." ecclesiastics[44] and women might also be members of the gild, but of course could not be burgesses. such members had, in some towns, to pay additional fees[45]. [sidenote: _distinction between gild and communa preserved in charters, but not in practice._] the charters were always granted to the "burgesses," without reference to their capacity as gild-members, except in the cases where the privileges granted were such as would only concern members of the gild. it was the "burgesses" who purchased the _firma burgi_ and who paid such goodly sums for trading and other privileges. but in making up these payments they were glad to avail themselves of the assistance of the non-burgess merchants, not the least of whose recommendations seemed doubtless to lie in the share they were willing to bear in contributing to the periodical tallages and similar royal charges. they were indeed as a document expresses it most serviceable when it was requisite "_defectus burgi adimplere_[46]." although in name it was the burgesses who paid the money and who purchased the _firma burgi_, it was in fact the merchant gild which bore the largest part. in another way also the "foreigners" who were members of the merchant gild were useful to the burgess-members of it. during earlier years all the craftsmen who so desired, and could afford the necessary payments, were admitted into the gild of merchants. the designation 'merchant' was then extended to all who engaged in trade. but as the gilda mercatoria became in practice more and more identical with the communa the idea seems to have grown up that landless men, renters of their shops within the towns, should not be admitted to the gild. [sidenote: _gild seems to become communa._] for in this period, that is during the 14th and 15th centuries, the old democratic government of the towns was giving place to a close governing council[47]. this was in no sense the merchant gild, though probably all the members of the select body would be members of the gild[48]. being also the most important of its members they would be able to use its influence for their own ends, and in these measures they would generally have on their side the majority of the "foreigners," who would not know or care much about the internal concerns of the town. thus it came about that having secured important trading privileges the influence of the merchant gild was chiefly directed, though by a small coterie of its members, towards municipal rather than mercantile objects. [sidenote: _rise of craft gilds favoured by merchant gild and communa._] [sidenote: _this favour natural under the circumstances and proved by the charters._] these latter it left to be dealt with by the new companies into which the craftsmen were beginning to amalgamate. in this action they were helped and encouraged by the merchant gild, or as it now was in practice, the municipal authority. it is a mistake to speak of the rise of the craft gilds in england as a movement bitterly hostile to the merchant gilds and therefore strenuously opposed by the latter. the reverse was the fact. the increased complexity of the task of regulating trade, as division of labour developed and commerce expanded its bounds, became difficult, and the central body was for this additional reason glad to depute its powers to, and to exercise its functions through, smaller and specialised agencies. the charters of the craft gilds too contain no articles which would stand the members in stead in a conflict with a higher power, whereas if these charters had been the hardly-won prize of a severely contested struggle they would assuredly have contained some bitter articles in consequence of the past and in preparation for the future. we shall however examine the rise and history of the craft gilds in the subsequent chapters. [sidenote: _summary._] the substance of the foregoing paragraphs may be briefly summarised thus. the most noticeable feature in the economic history of england during the years immediately succeeding the norman conquest was the growth of the towns. they differed however but little from the country districts in government except in the particular that they possessed a merchant gild. these trading corporations are first unmistakeably perceived soon after the conquest, originating probably in the need which arose, as the towns increased in wealth and importance, for the existence of some authority to preserve peace within their borders, as without peace and order trade could not prosper. such an union for securing internal peace, consisting as it did of the principal persons interested, easily went on to enact commercial regulations. these were, on the one hand, the reserving to its own body the privilege of purchasing the stock of the foreign merchant, and, on the other, restricting the right of selling within the town to its own members. royal authorisation set the seal to this practice. when the kings began to give charters to the towns, the legal recognition of their merchant gild was one of the chief of the privileges desired by the townsmen. this restricted trading was not prejudicial to the town because practically all the burgesses were members of the gild. if they all were not gildsmen _before_ the royal authorisation they would be likely to become so afterwards. but all gildsmen were not burgesses. the latter _must_ be residents: the former frequently included outsiders among their number. nevertheless as the years went by, the gild seemed to become the communa, even as the gild hall became the town hall. various reasons conduced to this. there were practically no burgesses extraneous to the merchant gild, though there were often gildsmen who were not burgesses. the merchant gild was the only machinery for freeing the fugitive villain after a year and a day's residence in the town. it also afforded the best, and as a fact the only, centre round which the burgesses could rally in the defence of their old privileges or in the struggle for fresh ones. its wealth and stability were also an additional inducement to the kings in granting to the towns their _firma burgi_. in theory the gilda mercatoria might be kept distinct from the communa, but in practice the two bodies were found to be identical. but the later communa did not take cognisance of trade affairs except indirectly through the craft gilds which the increasing complexity of trade was calling into being. many of the members of these latter bodies were members of the merchant gild, and to them were added large numbers of the lesser craftsmen. the craft gilds specialized the work of the merchant gild, which gradually ceased to discharge any important office as a collective whole, though through the many branches into which it had ramified its influence continued to be of the greatest importance to the welfare of town and trade. note 1. list of merchant gilds. the following is an attempt to construct a table of grants of the merchant gild (down to 1485), in chronological order, and showing also, where possible, by whom the grant was made. unfortunately the list is in several cases only approximately correct, as the document from which i have obtained my date shows that the merchant gild has evidently been granted at some previous time. in all cases however the earliest known mention of the gild is given. in compiling this table i should acknowledge my plentiful use of the materials recently made available in _the gild merchant_, by charles gross (oxford, 1890). _william ii. and henry i._ (1087-1135) burford 1087-1107 earl of gloucester canterbury 1093-1109 _henry i._ (1100-35) wilton 1100-35 king leicester 1107-18 robert, earl of mellent beverley 1119-35 abp thurstan of york york 1130-31 _stephen_ (1135-54) chichester king lewes reginald de warrenne _stephen and henry ii._ (1135-89) petersfield _henry ii._ (1154-89) carlisle king durham fordwich lincoln king oxford shrewsbury king southampton king wallingford king winchester king marlborough 1163 king andover 1175-6 king salisbury 1176 king bristol 1188 john, earl of moreton _richard i._ (1189-99) bath 1189 king bedford king gloucester nottingham john, earl of moreton bury s. edmund's 1198 _john_ (1199-1216) chester 1190-1211 earl of chester dunwich 1200 king ipswich 1200 king cambridge 1201 king helston 1201 king derby 1204 king lynn regis 1204 king malmesbury 1205-22 yarmouth 1208 king hereford 1215 king bodmin 1216 king totnes 1216 king newcastle-on-tyne 1216 king _henry iii._ (1216-1272) preston haverfordwest portsmouth worcester 1226-27 king bridgenorth 1227 king rochester 1227 king montgomery 1227 king hartlepool 1230 bp of durham dunheved (launceston) 1231-72 richard, earl of cornwall newcastle-under-lyme 1235 king liskeard 1239-40 richard, earl of cornwall wigan 1246 king sunderland 1247 king cardigan 1249 king reading 1253 king scarborough 1253 king guildford 1256 kingston-on-thames 1256 king boston ? 1260 macclesfield 1261 king coventry 1267-68 king lostwithiel 1269 _edward i._ (1272-1307) berwick bridgwater congleton henry de lacy devizes king welshpool griffith, lord of cyveiliog aberystwith 1277 king windsor 1277 king builth 1278 king rhuddlan 1278 king lyme regis 1284 king caernarvon 1284 king conway 1284 king criccieth 1284 king flint 1284 king harlech 1284 king altrincham 1290 hamon de massy caerswys 1290 king overton 1291-2 newport (salop) 1292 chesterfield 1294 john wake kirkham 1295 king beaumaris 1296 king henley-on-thames 1300 ? earl of cornwall barnstaple 1302 newborough 1303 king _edward ii._ (1307-1327) llanfyllin ruyton 1308-9 earl of arundel wycombe 1316 bala 1324 king _edward iii._ (1327-1377) gainsborough earl of pembroke bamborough 1332 grampound 1332 lampeter 1332 denbigh 1333 king lancaster 1337 cardiff 1341 hugh le despenser nevin 1343-76 prince of wales llantrissaint 1346 hugh le despenser hedon 1348 king hope 1351 prince of wales pwllheli 1355 prince of wales neath 1359 edward le despenser kenfig 1360 edward le despenser newton (s. wales) 1363 prince of wales _richard ii._ (1377-1399) axbridge newport 1385 earl of stafford oswestry 1398 king _henry iv._ (1399-1413) saffron-walden cirencester 1403 king _henry v._ (1413-1422) none _henry vi._ (1422-1461) plymouth 1440 walsall 1440 weymouth 1442 woodstock 1453 king _edward iv._ (1461-1483) ludlow 1461 king grantham 1462 stamford 1462 doncaster 1467 wenlock 1468 _richard iii._ (1483-1485) pontefract note 2. list of trades, handicrafts and professions comprised in the lists of members of the shrewsbury merchant gild. apotecarius, specer, spicer--apothecary aurifaber--goldsmith baker, bakere, pistor, pictor--baker barber, tonsor, tyncer--barber bercarius, tannator, tanner--tanner botman--corn-dealer brewer--brewer carnifex--butcher carpentarius, faber--carpenter carrere--carrier cementarius--? plasterer cissor, tailur, taylor, tayleur, parmentarius, parminter, parmonter--tailor clericus--clerk cocus--cook colier, coleyer--collier[49] comber--? wool-comber corvisarius, gorwicer, cordewaner, sutor--shoemaker coupere, hoppere (?)--cooper deyer--dyer forber--sword-cutler ganter, cirotecarius, glover--glover garnusur--garnisher grom--groom gunir, gynur harpour--harper haukerus, hawkerus, hawker--hawker justice--judge leche--leech loxmith, locker, lok--locksmith mason--mason mercer--mercer, merchant or retailer of small wares molendarius--miller palmer-pannarius--draper, clothier petler, ? pelterer--seller of skins piscator--fisherman potter--potter prest, presbyter--priest sadeler--saddler scriptor--transcriber sherer, shearman--clothworker tabernarius, taverner--tavern-keeper teynterer-walker or waller--? builder webbe--weaver wodemon--woodman wolbyer--wool-buyer chapter iii. the craft gilds. [sidenote: _the merchant gild and the craftsmen._] we have seen how the merchant gild consisted of all the traders whose business lay in the town. such an association, though nominally open to all whether landowners or not who could afford to pay the requisite fees, was in essence oligarchical, and this feature became in course of time its most apparent characteristic. we saw, also, how there grew up a large class extraneous to the privileged merchant gild. this body of outsiders became continually larger and more important. the welsh ravages in the exposed country would induce numbers to seek the friendly shelter of the town, which by this continuous infusion of fresh blood, found its trade become more and more flourishing, and consequently its attractions to "foreigners" more and more powerful. each branch of industry was also incessantly receiving large accessions of strength in the shape of fugitive villains from the country-side, who, by residence during a year and a day were released from fear of a reclaim to serfdom. these new settlers, some of whom the advance of time found making considerable strides towards prosperity, seeing themselves shut out from the town gild both by the exclusive spirit of that body and by the fact that they themselves were not owners of land within the town[50], but (even in the case of the wealthiest of them) only renters of their shops, were naturally drawn, by the spirit of the times, towards amalgamation[51]. [sidenote: _tendencies to union among the latter: religious,_] it was natural that men working at the same trade,--living probably in the same neighbourhood[52], and during intervals of rest exchanging gossip from adjacent door-steps,--meeting one another in all the actions of daily life and with thoughts and language running in similar grooves,--should also desire to be not separated in worship. likewise, in time of trouble, when death brought gloom to the house of a fellow-workman, or when through accident or misfortune he failed to appear at his accustomed place in yard or workshop, it was by the ordinary promptings of nature that his brother craftsmen came to offer their sympathy and help. and so we find the men of the various trades forming themselves into fraternities, in order to pour united supplications for divine assistance and to offer thanks in common for divine favour[53]. the tailors and shoemakers had their chantries in st chad's church, where the weavers also had their especial altar, maintaining in addition a light before the shrine of st winifred in the abbey of the holy cross. the drapers of the town early became drawn together in a religious brotherhood, the chapel of which in the collegiate church of our lady was the object of frequent and solicitous care when the fraternity of the holy trinity was definitively changed into the worshipful company of the drapers. in the church of st juliana the altar of the shearmen stood in the north aisle, where a chaplain said their special mass for a yearly stipend of £4[54]. it was the pride of the gilds to expend the best efforts of their wealth and skill on the embellishment and maintenance of their chapel upon which they were able to look as their own. their worldly possessions at no one time reached a figure high enough for them to provide a large endowment for church or chantry, but the thankofferings of the years sufficed for all current expenses. the fixed stipend was small, but the fabric, raised and adorned as funds allowed, was commodious and beautiful[55]. it was to this ever-present desire to consecrate some portion of the yearly profits of trade to the honour of him who had given the increase, that the annual pageant owed its pomp. the corpus christi procession was an occasion of especial prominence at shrewsbury, where the gild charters and records are full of minute regulations for its order. [sidenote: _social,_] the associations of fellow workmen for the purposes of religion also took the form of clubs for mutual benefit and assistance. the drapers were maintaining their school and schoolmaster in 1492[56]; their almshouses were only rivalled by those of the mercers. the maintenance of poor and decayed members was always one of the most prominent of the objects of association. attendance at the last offices by the grave of a deceased brother, and remembrance of him in prayer, were likewise universal duties of brethren. edward vi.'s confiscation of gild property broke down in all the towns a great system of poor-relief which had hitherto freed the government of that most difficult problem. nor did the gilds wait until a brother was completely crushed before they came to his assistance. fluctuations of trade then as now sometimes brought occasions of temporary embarrassment. but "the false and abominable contract of usury ... which the more subtily to deceive the people they call 'exchange' or 'chevisance,' whereas it might more truly be called 'mescheaunce,'" ... was rightly looked upon as unworthy of fellow-workers for the common good, "seeing that it ruins the honour and soul of the agent, and sweeps away the goods and property of him who appears to be accommodated, and destroys all manner of right and lawful traffick[57]." the common chest of the gild was therefore at the service of the brethren[58], not, as in the days of degeneracy, to aid the capitalist in grinding down his workmen, but to keep the craftsman from the clutches of the usurer. [sidenote: _commercial._] out of these religious fraternities and social clubs developed what we may more correctly term craft gilds; or to speak more strictly we should perhaps rather say that many of these societies began to add to their social and religious objects an additional one, namely trade regulation[59]. they would be encouraged in this direction by the action of the merchant gild, or its successor the municipal authority, which, as the expansion of trade necessitated specialisation, was glad to depute its powers to such associations[60]. [sidenote: _early craft gilds._] [sidenote: _effect of their growth on merchant gild._] the earliest mention of craft gilds is in the reign of henry i., when notice is found of the weavers of london, oxford, winchester, lincoln and huntingdon, the cordwainers of oxford and the fullers of winchester[61]. they became more common and more influential as the development of industry was fostered by the central government. this was especially the policy of edward i. and edward iii. by the end of the 14th century the craft gilds become numerous. as they took over the duties and functions of the merchant gild the existence of the latter was rendered to a considerable extent superfluous, and the merging of the gilda mercatoria into the communa became not only inevitable but convenient and natural. during the 14th and 15th centuries, when the craft gilds attained their highest power, the decay of the merchant gilds became very marked. [sidenote: _the later "merchant gild."_] in some places where this happened the name of the merchant gild wholly disappeared. in others where the expression continued in use the institution changed its character and became simply a religious fraternity. in a few instances the select corporation alone inherited the name: in some the whole body of freemen did so. again, there are examples of a survival of the expression as applied to the whole body of tradesmen, that is the whole of the members of the various gilds[62]. a patent of queen elizabeth, dated 1586, thus alludes to the aggregate of unions under the collective name of "the gild of burgesses of shrewsbury." in the same way we read of "the several companies belonging to the guild merchant of reading," "the guild of merchants in andever, which guild is divided into three several fellowships," etc. just as the merchant gild differentiated itself into craft gilds, the craft gilds afterwards again in the aggregate took the name and style of the merchant gild. [sidenote: _identity of interests of corporation and gilds seen in police regulations;_] if such additional proof were needed this action on their part might be adduced in support of the assertion, which cannot be too strongly emphasised or too often repeated, that in england there was no conflict between the merchant gild and the craft gilds. though these latter associations had grown up in vindication, as it might seem, of the principle of free amalgamation in opposition to oligarchical exclusiveness, and although it was evident that as they increased the merchant gild must decline, yet there was at no time any idea of antagonism between the two kinds of authority within the town. on the contrary internal police was very materially assisted by the gilds[63]. they carried on the good work which the merchant gild had inaugurated. not only were dissensions among combrethren to be brought before the wardens and stewards instead of forming the occasion of unseemly brawls and disturbances, but one of the objects for which the associations existed is expressly stated to be "for the weale, rest and tranquilitie of the same towne, and for good rule to be kept there[64]." with this object in view the composition of the tailors and skinners (1478) contains several articles which show how materially the officers of the gild assisted the bailiffs of the town[65]. [sidenote: _evidenced by supervision of municipal authorities,_] the gild officers, though freely elected by the combrethren took their oaths of office before the bailiffs of the town, who also secured, if necessary, the enforcement of the ordinances of the gilds[66]. the town authorities exercised, too, a general supervision: it seems to have been the rule for the compositions to be annually (or periodically) inspected; and for new regulations to be subject to municipal approval[67]. [sidenote: _(therefore supported by them;) shown by charters,_] one consequence of this authorisation by the town officials was that the latter ceased to take cognisance of trade affairs except indirectly through the gilds; another was that the gilds were supported by the town authorities. in order to carry out the rules of the gilds it was imperative that all men of a trade should belong to the particular gild of that craft. for there might come men carrying on trade in the town unwilling to submit to the rules framed for ensuring good work and protecting the interests of the craft. these it would be impossible to check until the gild had been recognised and authorised by the crown or the corporation, and so had obtained power to enforce its ordinances in a legitimate way. it was in this manner that the necessity arose for obtaining a charter[68]. the fraternities, which in their earlier stages had existed as voluntary associations, now received authoritative recognition, by virtue of charters obtained from the king by the aid of the corporation. the composition of the tailors and skinners (1478) shows the company and the corporation in the closest connection; that of the mercers, granted by edward prince of wales, son of edward iv., in 1480-81, is countersigned by the bailiffs. the necessity for this authoritative recognition is clearly seen in the continually recurring ordinance calling upon all men of the craft to join the gild. if the gild had not been supported by royal and municipal authority it would have been impossible for it to have carried out its aims; as it was the task was sufficiently difficult. [sidenote: _and oaths._] the unity of interests of the gilds and the corporation is further shown by the words of the oaths. the wardens' oath of the company of glovers ran as follows. "you shalbe true to our sov'aigne lord king ... his heirs and successors and obedient to the bailiffs of this town for the time being and their successors. and you shall well and truly execute and p'forme your office of wardens of glovers, poynt-makers, pursers, ffelmongers, lethersellers and pa'hment-makers for this yeare according to the true extent and meaning of your composition and of all and singular articles and agreements therein expressed and declared to the uttermost of your power. so helpe you god." the oaths of the other officers, and of the freemen, contained like promises[69]. [sidenote: _composition of gilds._] [sidenote: _masters._] [sidenote: _apprentices._] [sidenote: _journeymen._] [sidenote: _women._] in the composition of the trade gilds there was no attempt to erect a monopoly. all workers of the craft except such as could make separate terms with the corporation[70] were not only permitted to join the gild, but were compelled to do so. the members included apprentices and journeymen as well as masters[71]. women too were not debarred from joining[72], though they, like the apprentices and journeymen[73], took no part in the business of administration[74]. the charter of the drapers[75] speaks of both brethren and sistren, and the list of members as given on the occasions of "cessments" shows women-members, both wives of combrethren, independent tradeswomen, and widows of deceased brothers. [sidenote: _officers._] in the election of their officers the english gilds differed materially from similar associations on the continent. in england the choice appears to have been always unrestricted[76]. refusal to accept office when elected exposed the reluctant brother to a money fine. the oaths of the officers, as we have seen, contained declarations of loyalty to the crown and municipal authority, and in this way we may account for the absence of _masters_ among the officials of the shrewsbury gilds. the place of the master seems to have been filled, in some sort at least, by the bailiffs of the town. at any rate none of the many gilds of shrewsbury ever had a master at the head of their officers. the _wardens_ were uniformly two in number, freely elected by all the brethren from such as were "the most worthiest and discreetest and which will and best can[77]." that it was not altogether a needless precaution to order that the elected wardens should be members of the gild appears from the later abuses which arose, wardens being sometimes chosen from without the number of the combrethren[78]. the functions of these, the principal officers, were generally to carry into effect the objects of the gild. to do this they possessed the right of search for inadequate materials or unsuitable tools, and a general supervision over workmen to secure competency. the composing of quarrels among combrethren was a prominent part of their duties. [sidenote: _assistants._] the board of assistants which exercised so harmful an influence over the companies in later days is found at shrewsbury at an early date[79]. the composition of the tailors and skinners, 1478 a.d., speaks of the "fower men ordeigned to the said wardens to be assistant in counsel in good counsel giving." they reappear in 1563 as the four assistants "for advising them [the wardens] in the government of the gild[80]." in this particular as in so many others the gilds of shrewsbury seem to have been distinguished by a greater desire to widen the area of the governing body than was the case with the great companies of london and elsewhere. for the language of some bye-laws of the corporation passed in 18 edward iv., seems to imply that the "four men" were common to all the companies. in the gilds of most provincial towns such assistants no doubt shared in the government from early years. the _stewards_ were two in number. at a later date they were nominated by the wardens[81], though in earlier times probably elective. their particular duties nowhere very clearly appear. they seem to have assisted the wardens and four men in hearing and examining of "all manner of matters, causes and controv'sies which shall happen amongst the brethren[82]." the _beadle_ summoned members to meetings and officiated in whatever of formality was observed in them. he would keep the door of the hall, and see that none but brethren were admitted within the privileged chamber. his was the duty of providing that due order and regularity was observed in the proceedings, and, if necessary, of carrying into effect the decisions of the assembly against refractory members. in the annual procession we can well imagine that the beadles of the respective companies would bear themselves with no common pride. their duties also included the summoning of members to weddings and funerals of brethren. the mercers' composition of 1424 carefully details the duties of the _searcher_. he, as also the beadle, was usually nominated by the wardens, four men and stewards jointly, and, as his name implied, was charged with bringing to the notice of the gild anything contrary to its rules or prejudicial to its interests. a _clerk_ is also mentioned, who drew up indentures of apprenticeship and kept the gild registers. at a later period the office of _treasurer_ was introduced and became of considerable importance. [sidenote: _meetings._] the election of officers was the principle item of business at the great annual meeting of the gild. this was held on the festival of the saint in whose name the gild was dedicated. it was preceded by mass in the parish church whither the brethren and sistren went in procession wearing their distinctive hoods and liveries, and bearing lights in their hands. to add to the dignity of the occasion a play or mystery was sometimes performed, but more usually such representations were reserved for the great common feast of corpus christi. [sidenote: _business at meetings._] [sidenote: _penalties._] at the meeting, which from its most general name of "mornspeche" appears to have followed soon after mass, great solemnity was observed. the double-locked box[83] was opened by the two wardens[84] amidst a reverential silence, and the composition or charter preserved in it rehearsed to the assembled brethren. business was then proceeded with:--election of officers, admittance of new brethren, authorisation of indentures. then if necessary regulations were passed for the government of the gild and ordinances made for the due protection of trade, such as summonses to intruders to enter the union. the ordinary penalties which the companies might inflict were fines of money or of wax, (in which king and corporation shared and which they were consequently willing to enforce,) and, in extreme cases total expulsion from the gild, which of course meant exclusion from trade within the town. [sidenote: _halls._] after the "mornspeche" came the mutual feast. the brethren had begun the day by union for worship, they ended it with union for social and convivial festivity. in later times the business portion of the meeting was transacted in the hall of the gild and the brethren afterwards adjourned to some convenient tavern. several of the halls were standing until quite recent times. such were those of the mercers, tailors, and weavers[85]. that of the shearmen is now used as an auction mart, but the drapers' hall still retains its former dignity. [sidenote: _necessity of historical attitude_] it will be necessary to attempt some estimation of the extent and value of the influence which the gilds exercised on contemporary life and thought. in doing this, and indeed in dealing with the whole subject of trade regulation in the middle ages, it is necessary to bear continually in mind that not only were the conditions of trade then very materially different from those under which we now live, but that economic theory was still more at variance with modern views. it is necessary therefore to take a historical attitude, and to try to appreciate both the difference of social conditions, and the difference of objects in view. these objects may be considered firstly as individual and perhaps selfish; and, secondly, as general and for the common good. [sidenote: _in estimating importance of gilds; commercial,_] 1. if we consider the charters from the first point of view we see that the trade regulations were dictated by the desire to secure to all the brethren their means of livelihood: "no broder" was to "induce or tyce any other mastres accostom," or to employ the servants of another combrother, or otherwise to act in a spirit of unbrotherly and dishonourable competition. the charters are full of such regulations. no member might obtrude wares before passers in the open street, or erect booths "for to have better sale than eny of the combrethren[86]." 2. similarly also if we view the compositions in light of what we have described as the second of their objects. the excellent motive of mediæval regulation of industry was to secure the prosperity of trade by ensuring skilled workmanship and proper materials. in consequence it was forbidden for workmen whose capacity was unknown to work in the town until their efficiency had been proved. the barbers' composition of 1432 ordered that "no man' p'sone sette up nother holde no shoppe in privite ny apperte ny shave as a maistre withinne the saide tow' ny franchise in to the tyme that ev'y such p'sone have the wille and assent of the stywardes and maistres of the saide crafte." it was the desire to ensure the public being well served that prompted the articles in the composition of the mercers (1480-1) which ordered the searcher "to make serche uppon all the occupyers of the saide craftes ... that non of theym occupie eny false balaunce weight or mesures belongeing to the sayde craftes or eny of theym, wherebie the kyngs people in eny wyse myght be hurt or dysseyved." it was also part of the same officer's duties to "oversee that any thyng app'tenyng to the saide craftes or eny of theym to be boght and solde in the saide towne and frauncheses be able suffyceant and lawfull and that noe dyssayte nor gyle to the kyngs liege people therbye be had." no indentures were to be drawn for less than "seven years at the least," so that adequate training should be secured. we thus perceive how the craft gilds differed, on the one hand from the frith gilds of more ancient times, and on the other from the commercial companies of later days. the former were associations in which every member was responsible for the actions of each of his fellows; in the craft gilds each member bound himself to abide by the regulations of the rest. the essence of the later commercial companies is union for mere pecuniary gain; the gilds set in the forefront of the objects of their association the material benefit of the community and the religious and moral good of the individual. the resemblance between trades unions and the mediæval gilds is not entirely fanciful; but no two documents can be more widely different than the prospectus of a limited liability company and a gild charter of the middle ages. [sidenote: _social,_] the gild system may be considered from various points of view. regarded in its social aspect its importance can hardly be exaggerated. it has been pointed out how the work of the gilds prevented the difficulty of poor relief becoming acute, and also how valuable their influence was in the maintenance of order, through the respect they evinced for the established law. the immense weight they must have had on the side of morality, by the importance they attached to the moral character of their members must not be overlooked. "the rules of the gilds which have come down to us, quaint and homely as they sound, breathe a spirit as elevated as it is simple, and although we must probably make the usual allowance for the difference between men's acts and their words, we cannot but believe that the generations which formed such grand conceptions and which so persistently strove to realise them, had a better side than posterity has discovered[87]." the extent, too, to which they operated in linking class to class was very great. there was no impassable barrier between commerce and birth. in the lists of apprentices which have been preserved to us the entries of names belonging to county families are frequent. it was the ordinary custom for the younger sons to be put to business in the town. the social value of such a habit must have been great. within the craft, too, the distinctions were only caused by differences in the degrees of wealth. by industry and perseverance the meanest apprentice might look forward to attainment of the highest honours his gild could bestow, and even, by success in trade, to nobility. as in athelstan's time the merchant who fared thrice beyond the sea at his own cost became of thegn-right worthy[88], so it was all through the middle ages: even in the 17th century harrison says "our merchants do often change estate with gentlemen, as gentlemen do with them, by a mutual conversion of the one into the other[89]." [sidenote: _constitutional._] the education obtained by the framing of their own ordinances was also no slight gain to the townsmen. they provided for their peculiar needs in their own peculiar way, not always we may say in the best way, but in that which they, who knew the special requirements of the case, considered the best. each who took part in drawing up those regulations would feel that a certain share of responsibility rested with him to see that they were kept. the constitutional importance also of this training, in imparting an appreciation of the responsibilities and duties which devolve on those who frame regulations was not unimportant. the services which the gilds rendered to the cause of liberty by the feeling of strong cohesion which they produced among the townsmen would be less difficult to estimate if the burgesses had played a more distinctive part in the work of parliament[90]. it is easier to point out how, if they may have interfered to some extent with family life on the one hand, they on the other increased the tendency to narrowness and localism which was otherwise sufficiently strong throughout the middle ages, and indeed through considerably later times. everything was antagonistic to the widening of the townsman's sympathies. he found his trade, his ambition, almost his whole life, satisfied within the walls of the borough in which he dwelt; and the craft gilds crystallised, as it were, this tendency towards insularity. [sidenote: _special interest of their history at present time._] it may be noticed how a special interest attaches at the present time to the history of the gilds and to the study of their influence and development. the condition of the working classes must always be a point of vital importance to the welfare of the state. it is peculiarly so to-day. anything therefore which can assist us to understand how the present degradation of the craftsman has been brought about, and which may help towards his amelioration, will be valuable and of practical usefulness. five hundred years ago the working man differed very widely from his modern representative; how widely may be gathered from a single illustration. the architects of the churches and other buildings which the middle ages have bequeathed to us in such large numbers and of such exquisite beauty are, in the vast majority of cases, unknown to-day even by name. they were not less unknown to contemporaries. for they were men of like nature with their fellows: _ancestors of our modern artisans_. how great a change has grown up in the generations which have intervened. five centuries ago the workman was intelligent and skilled, he is now untrained and degraded: he was then able and accustomed to take a proper pride in his work, he is now careless and indifferent: he used to be provident and thrifty, now he is usually reckless and wasteful. it is not too much to say that a great reason of this vast difference is to be found in the influence which the gilds exercised. in their character as benefit clubs they taught their members to be thrifty: by insisting on a careful and systematic training during seven years of apprenticeship they made them skilled and capable workmen, and as such able to take an interest in, and to derive pleasure from their work. it has been pointed out that the gilds prevented extreme poverty from ever becoming at all normal. uncertainty of employment and demoralising fluctuations of wages are among the most crying evils of our modern social _régime_. the craft gilds did much to secure regularity of work and to steady the price of labour. thus it is evident how great and peculiar an interest attaches to the whole subject of the gilds at the present day. it is a subject which does not merely offer attractions to the antiquary or provide valuable materials for the student of constitutional and municipal development. it has a far wider and more human significance. a study of the extent and nature of the influence which the gilds exercised on the condition and skill of the working man in the past will help to solve the problem of his improvement in the present and in the future. note i. indenture of apprenticeship from the mercers' company's records. a.d. 1414. hæc indentura testatur etc. inter johannem hyndlee de northampton, brasyer, et gulielmum filium thomæ spragge de salopia, quod predictus gulielmus posuit semetipsum apprenticium dicto johanni hyndlee, usque ad finem octo annorum, ad artem vocatam _brasyer's craft_, quâ dictus johannes utitur, medio tempore humiliter erudiendum. infra quem quidem terminum præfatus gulielmus concilia dicti johannis hyndlee magistri sui celanda celabit. dampnum eidem johanni nullo modo faciet nec fieri videbit, quin illud cito impediet aut dictum magistrum suum statim inde premuniet. a servicio suo seipsum illicite non absentabit. bona et catalla dicti johannis absque ejus licentiâ nulli accomodabit. tabernam, scortum, talos, aleas, et joca similia non frequentabit, in dispendium magistri sui. fornicationem nec adulterium cum aliqua muliere de domo et familia dicti johannis nullo modo committet, neque uxorem ducet, absque licentia magistri sui. præcepta et mandata licita et racionabilia magistri sui ubique pro fideli posse ipsius gulielmi, diligenter adimplebit et eisdem mandatis libenter obediet. et si prædictus gulielmus de aliqua convencione sua vel articulo præscripto defecerit, tunc idem gulielmus juxta modum et quantitatem delicti sui magistro suo satisfaciet emendam aut terminum apprenticiatus sui duplicabit. et præfatus johannes et assignati sui apprenticium suum in arte prædicta meliori modo quo idem johannes sciverit ac poterit tractabunt docebunt et informabunt, seu ipsum informari facient sufficienter, debito modo castigando, et non aliter. præterea dictus johannes concedit ad docendum et informandum dictum gulielmum in arte vocata _peuterer's craft_ adeo bene sicut sciverit seu poterit ultra convencionem suam præmissam. et idem johannes nullam partem artium prædictarum ab apprenticio suo concelabit. invenient insuper johannes et assignati sui dicto gulielmo omnia sibi necessaria, viz. victum suum et vestitum, lineum, laneum, lectum, hospicium, calceamenta et cætera sibi competencia annuatim sufficienter, prout ætas et status ipsius gulielmi exigerint. in cujus rei testimonium etc. 1414. note ii. oath to be taken by the freemen of the mercers' company. in the company's records this oath occurs immediately after a curious calendar, written in 15th century hand, and before a list of "brethren received and incorporated in the time of rici attynchin and john cutlere wardens" in 3 henry vi., (1424-5). fidelitas. i shall trewe man be to god o'r lady seynt marie seynt mychell th'archangell patrone of the gylde and to the fraternite of the mercers yremongers and goldsmythes & cappers w'in the towne and fraunches of shrowesbury i shall also trewe man be to the king our liege lorde and to his heyres kyngys and his lawes and mynystars of the same truly obs've and obey and ov' this i shall be obedyent to my wardens and their sumpneys obey and kepe i shall be trewe and ffeythfull to the combrethern of the gylde aforeseyd and ther co'ncell kepe all lawdable and lefull actes and composic'ons made or to be made w{t}in the seide gylde truly obeye p'forme and kepe aft' my reason and power i shall be contributare bere yelde and paye all man' ordynare charges cestes and contribucons aftur my power as any other master occupyer or combrother of the seid gylde shall happen to doe and bere: soe helpe me god and halidame and by the boke. chapter iv. the early history of the gilds of shrewsbury. [sidenote: _existed before they held charters._] in the foregoing chapter it has been shown how the craft gilds were called into being. they possessed at first no charters[91] because none were needed. it was only when friction arose that there came any necessity for royal authority to step forward with its support and sanction[92]. [sidenote: _scanty notice at first._] and as they at first possessed no charters, so they have left few or no records of their earliest life. so long as they worked in thorough accord with the spirit of the age and completely fulfilled its requirements they left scanty traces. it is only when the period of degeneracy commences that we begin to have anything like adequate materials for their detailed history. [sidenote: _fourteenth century; difficulties for gilds to face._] the 14th century was fruitful in illustrations of the difficulties which beset the work of the gilds. the development of trade alone had proceeded far enough to render their task already complicated: their difficulties were increased abnormally by the exceptional conditions of labour brought about by the black death. the peasant revolt compelled parliament to take cognisance of industrial difficulties. in 1388, at its meeting at cambridge, it was largely occupied with trade questions[93], and ordered the issue of writs to the sheriff of each county in england, commanding returns of all details as to the foundation, objects, and condition of both religious fraternities and craft gilds. these returns show that most of the gilds obtained their charters during the 13th and the early years of the 14th centuries[94]. [sidenote: _development of industry._] it does not appear that any legislation followed upon this parliamentary action, but provisions now begin to appear for the settlement of disputes between masters and workmen, and also between brethren of the gild. so far the different classes of workmen had worked together in harmony upon the whole, but it could not fail that a severance or at least a marked diversity of interests should arise. most important, as demonstrating that it was the change in external circumstances, and not so much the internal degeneracy of the gilds themselves, which was causing the friction, are the evidences which show that a great division of labour was in progress[95]. in the 13th century the tailor and the cloth-merchant sever their former connection: the businesses of the tanner and of the butcher become distinct branches of trade[96]. similarly the tanner and the shoemaker were made separate callings[97]. the same movement is still more clearly seen in the disputes which arose between allied gilds as to the particular work which each was charged with supervising[98]. it was the creation of opposing interests, of which such were the outward signs, that introduced the seed of decay into the gild system. [sidenote: _fifteenth century: avowal of abuses,_] how rapidly the degeneracy proceeded may be gathered from a petition of the commons early in the 15th century (1437), which evoked an act (15 hen. vi., cap. 6) definitely recognising the existence of abuses. after reciting how the "masters, wardens, and people of gilds, fraternities, and other companies corporate, dwelling in divers parts of the realm, oftentimes by colour of rule and governance to them granted and confirmed by charters and letters patent ... made among themselves many unlawful and little reasonable ordinances ... for their own singular profit and to the common hurt and damage of the people," the statute proceeded to order that the gilds should not in the future "make or use any ordinance in disparity or diminution of the franchises of the king or others, or against the common profit of the people, nor allow any other ordinance if it is not first approved as good and reasonable by the justices of the peace or the chief magistrates aforesaid and before them enrolled and to be by them revoked and repealed afterwards if they shall be found and proved to be little loyal and unreasonable." [sidenote: _but approval of the system._] [sidenote: _policy of reform._] but it is abundantly clear that the complaints are against the abuses of the system and not against the system itself. dissatisfaction is expressed at the "little reasonable ordinances" of the gilds but not against the companies themselves. the policy therefore of henry vi. and edward iv. was to reform the gilds by amending their ordinances, or, if necessary, giving them charters of incorporation which should set forth definitely their objects, and state both the extent and the limitation of their powers. it is from this period that we date most of the existing records of the shrewsbury companies. the barbers are said to have been chartered by edward i. in 1304[99]; their earliest extant composition[100] is dated 1432 (10 hen. vi.). the shoemakers' composition of 1387 recited a charter of edward iii.[101] a vintners' company is said to have been erected in shrewsbury by henry iv. in 1412[101]. but it is with the accession of henry vi. that the great number of present charters and compositions begins. the date of the fishmongers' company is 1423[101], and the entries of the mercers commence in the next year[101]. the barbers' composition of 1432 has been already mentioned. then follow the weavers (1448-9), the fletchers (1449), the carpenters (1449-50) in close proximity[101]. the tailors and skinners (1461) were recognised in the last year of henry vi.[101], and eighteen years subsequently received a new composition from edward iv. (1478), who had in the first year of his reign united the fraternity of the blessed trinity with the company of the drapers[102]. the companies of the millers, bakers, cooks, butchers and shearmen certainly existed before 1478, as they are mentioned as taking part in the corpus christi procession at that date. in that year the tanners and glovers were incorporated[103], as also were the saddlers[103]. the royal recognition of the mercers[101] in the next year completed the list of shrewsbury companies erected before the 16th century. [sidenote: _later religious gilds._] it will be convenient here to draw attention to a different kind of gild which was founded in shrewsbury towards the close of this period: the religious gild of s. winifred. the ancient monks' gilds which had spread so early over england, found as was to be expected later imitators in large numbers. the oldest accounts of these gilds also, like those of the monks' gilds, are found in england[104]. religious or social they are usually called. they all evinced a strong religious character, but in addition had a care for the old and needy. if a gild-brother suffer loss through theft "let all the gildship avenge their comrade," says the cambridge statute. they also took cognisance of public welfare. if a gild-brother do wrong "let all bear it: if one misdo, let all bear alike." if a man be slain in fair quarrel with a gild-brother the _wite_ is to be borne by all, but the wilful or treacherous murderer is "to bear his own deed." these gilds rapidly spread over all europe, and existed probably in every town. they doubtless formed the model to which the later associations looked, and, except in details, differed little from the craft gilds. they were frequently connected with trade, even in some instances consisting entirely of followers of specific crafts[105], and loans were made out of the common chest to help members in misfortune[106]. we have scant information of early religious gilds in shrewsbury, though there can be but little doubt they flourished there as elsewhere. later, in the 15th century, one was founded by the abbot of the holy cross, which presents several unusual and interesting features. thomas mynde was elected abbot on january 8th, 1460, but it was not till 1486 that he took measures to found the fraternity of s. winifred, though probably the scheme had been previously shaping itself through the long period of unsettlement which the civil wars had caused. the present gild differed from the earlier foundations in being deliberately created by royal charter. the reason was that without such security it could not receive grants of land, and abbot mynde was desirous to bequeath to it his private possessions rather than to leave them to his monastery,--a curious commentary perhaps on the low estimation into which the religious houses had fallen. the royal charter was not obtained without some trouble. the license itself says it was granted "by [reason of] the sincere devotion which we have and bear towards s. winefrida virgin and martyr;" but abbot mynde assures us that this laudable zeal required the practical stimulus of "a large sum of money" before it would take effect in action. the terms of the charter allowed both brethren and sisters to join the fellowship, the number being unregulated. the oath to support the gild was taken by each member on admittance, kneeling before the altar in the abbey of the holy cross. power was given for the election of a master, whose duties were the regulation of the gild and the supervision of its property. the fraternity had its common seal, and the ordinary powers and privileges of corporations. it was especially exempted from the mortmain acts, and was allowed to acquire property to the yearly value of £10. the objects to which this was to be devoted were the finding of two chaplains, or at least one, whose duties were the saying of a daily mass at the altar of s. winifred in the abbey, and the celebration of a requiem mass on the decease of a brother or sister of the fraternity. at such masses it was especially provided that the prayers for the departed soul should be _in english_. the gild was joined in considerable numbers by the principal folk of the town, but there is little information[107] respecting its history, which may be at once anticipated here. at the confiscation of the chantry and gild property the fraternity of s. winifred was not able to plead the excuse of usefulness for trade purposes, and it fell unnoticed in the ruin of the great abbey with which it was connected. its life had been a short one, but coming as it did at a time when religious fervour was weak and morality lax, it no doubt served a useful purpose and deserved a better fate than almost total oblivion. [sidenote: _charters granted to craft gilds._] returning after this digression to the craft gilds it will be interesting and profitable to make an examination and comparison of two of their charters, one selected from the earlier and one from the later portion of the period. the charter[108] of the barbers' gild, granted by henry vi. in 1432, may be placed beside the composition[109] which edward iv. gave to the mercers in 1480. [sidenote: _religious articles._] a point which strikes us forcibly on the most superficial examination of the charters, is the prominence given, in one as in the other, to the corpus christi procession. it is a striking illustration of the extent to which mediæval materialism had permeated society, and how deeply rooted was that "tendency to see everything in the concrete, to turn the parable into a fact, the doctrine into its most literal application[110]," which scholastic philosophy had nurtured. the procession indeed would almost appear, from the charters, to be the principal object for which the gilds exist. a considerable share of the fines is expressly devoted to the "increce of the lyght that is boren yerely in the heye and worthie ffest of corpus xti day." the mercers' composition regulates the order of the procession and the weight of the candle which the company provides in it. no member is to be out of his place on the festival without permission, and the combrethren are especially prohibited from going to "the coventrie fayre" at this season under penalty of a fine of twelve pence. the fact of being enabled to take part in the procession is manifestly looked upon as one of the great privileges and duties of the companies. the mercers' gild also provided for a priest to say a daily mass at the altar of s. michael in the church of s. chad; and thirteen poor bedesmen were retained at a penny per week to pray for the king and queen and councillors, and for the brethren of the gild "both quyke and dedd." [sidenote: _trade articles._] the trade regulations of the two compositions are naturally cast in the same mould. in both appears the prohibition of foreign labour (the mercers say "except in fayre tyme"), and of under-selling by combrethren as well as unfair competition generally. the later regulations go further and provide for the carrying out of the ordinances of the composition by the appointment of a searcher to secure the use of good materials and to prevent "dissayte and gyle," the use of false weights, &c. they also forbid the taking of aliens as apprentices[111]. all indentures are to be for seven years at the least, and none are to be taken as apprentices without being properly bound by indentures approved by the wardens and recorded by the clerk. there is also the article which now becomes common, against divulging the secrets of the craft, and an interesting one against "eny confederacye or embracerye wherebie any p'judices hurt or hynd'ance myght growe." [sidenote: _articles of reform._] in the later charter, too, it is evident that there had arisen no small need for reform. in the forefront it is stated that the previous "fines assessyd uppon ev'y app'ntice at their entries to be maysters combrethyrn and settursuppe of the said craftes or any of them," "and in like wyse gret fynes uppon eny forreyn that shoulde entre into the same" are "thought overchargeable" and so are to be "dymynished and refowrmed." if members refuse to pay them, as thus amended, they may be levied by distress. of how great a falling-off from the original spirit of brotherhood do these two short articles speak. [sidenote: _police._] both the documents provide for the trial of dissensions among brethren, in preference to going before the ordinary tribunals, though by permission cases might be taken before the bailiffs of the town. [sidenote: _liveries._] in a similar spirit of pacification the mercers' composition forbids the wearing of liveries "saving the lyverray of gownes or hodes of the said gylde to be ordeyned and worne," and that of the municipal corporation[112]. this was in accordance with the act 13 henry iv. cap. 3. the abuse of liveries had evoked from parliament an attempt to put a total stop to the custom[113] (13 rich. ii.). such endeavours were futile. this was at last recognised, and in 13 henry iv. the use of liveries of cloth was prohibited, but with the important proviso, "gilds and fraternities and crafts in the cities and boroughs within the kingdom which are founded and ordained to good intent and purpose alone being excepted." in 1468 edward iv. confirmed previous legislation on the subject[114]. [sidenote: _sixteenth century._] in spite of reforms by improved compositions and legislative measures the degeneracy of the gilds proceeded apace. the statute 19 hen. vii. cap. 7 repeats the complaint of 15 hen. vi. cap. 6, and re-enacts the same restrictions. "divers and many ordinances have been made by many and divers private bodies corporate within cities, towns, and boroughs contrary to the king's prerogative, his laws, and the common weal of his subjects:" in future therefore the gilds are prohibited from making any new by-laws or ordinances concerning the prices of wares and other things "in disheritance or diminution of the prerogative of the king, nor of other, nor against the common profit of the people, but that the same acts or ordinances be examined and approved by the chancellor, treasurer of england, or chief justices." the repetition of the same articles shows how little effective they had been in checking the abuses against which they were directed. [sidenote: _policy of reform pursued._] nevertheless henry vii. and henry viii. persevered in the work of regulating, reforming and strengthening the gilds. the statute of 1530[115] once more diminished entrance fees, which had been inordinately and illegally raised; but another of 1536[116] repeating the same prohibition shows the utter futility of such measures in the condition of trade which had been brought about. a more serious abuse appears in the latter statute, namely the attempt of the masters to exact from their apprentices an oath promising to refrain from prosecuting trade on their own account without consent of their late master. such abuses exhibit the gilds in a state of wholesale demoralisation. [sidenote: _reformation._] this was not unnatural under the circumstances, for the course of the reformation had tended to turn public opinion against the gilds. moreover it now gave them a severe shock on one side, at any rate, of their functions. [sidenote: _confiscation of chantries and robbery of gilds._] the confiscation of monastic lands had shown how easy it was for a needy government to seize upon corporate property to its own use, and the example was not long without being followed. the statute 37 hen. viii. cap. 4 gave the whole property of all colleges, hospitals, fraternities and gilds to the king. before this wholesale desolation could be effected henry died, but somerset obtained a renewal[117] of the grant to edward vi. the words of the act are absolute in making over to the king all the lands and other possessions of chantries, colleges, hospitals, gilds and bodies of a similar nature, both religious and secular. no distinction is made as to aim or object, utility or abuse. according to the terms of the statute, we should expect every gild and corporate body in the country to come to an end with the years 1547-8. nevertheless though the chantries were seized the craft gilds in general remained. the reason for this apparent divergence between the provisions of the statute and the facts of the case is given by burnet. two parties opposed the passing of the act. cranmer and the best of the reformers were grieved to see the material supports of the church one after another torn away to prop up the failing fortunes of needy and rapacious courtiers. they desired to preserve the lands of the chantries till the king came of age, when they hoped they might be devoted to the suitable object of augmenting the livings which had been in such numbers impoverished by the reformation changes. on the other hand were the burgesses. these had no mind to see their own property confiscated, and their benefit societies and clubs suddenly broken up. we may appreciate the feelings of the nation respecting the proposed measure by considering what would be the effect of a statute taking over the properties of all benefit clubs, trades unions, lodges of oddfellows and foresters, and similar associations, to-day. cranmer and his supporters failed to overthrow the measure in the lords, but when it came to the lower house it was at once evident that a considerable amount of careful statesmanship and astute policy would be requisite if the statute was to pass. apparently no opposition was expected, as the bill was already engrossed, or perhaps it was hoped that it might be smuggled through amidst the hurry of the closing session. but the government discovered that they had gone to the length of the nation's patience. the commons saw in its true enormity the conspiracy of the rich and powerful against the weak and poor, and this once perceived a check was given, tardy but not quite too late, to the long and disastrous course of spoliation and confiscation. the opposition to the bill was obstinate, especially as regarded that portion which dealt with the gilds. led by the members for lynn and coventry the house showed unmistakeably that it was at length determined to submit no longer. in fact the feeling was evidently so strong that the government perceived the absolute necessity of drawing back. the mode in which this was done is explained in the following extract, which, though written from the court point of view, shows up the whole incident as a choice specimen of the statesmanship of the period. "whereas in the last parliament holden at westminster in november the first year of the king's majesty's reign, among other articles contained in the act for colleges and chantry lands, etc., to be given unto his highness, it was also insisted that the lands pertaining to all guilds and brotherhoods within this realm should pass unto his majesty by way of like gift: at which time divers there being of the lower house did not only reason and arraign against that article made for the guildable lands, but also incensed many others to hold with them, amongst the which none were stiffer, nor more busily went about to impugn the said article than the burgesses for the town of lynn in the county of norfolk and the burgesses of the city of coventry in the county of warwick.... in respect of which their allegations and great labours made herein unto the house such of his highness's council as were of the same house there present, thought it very likely that not only that article for the guildable lands should be clashed, but also that the whole body of the act might either sustain peril or hindrance, being already engrossed, and the time of the parliament's prolongation hard at hand, unless by some good policy the principal speakers against the passing of that article might be stayed. whereupon they did participate the matter with the lord protector's grace and other of the lords of his highness's council: who pondering on the one part how the guildable lands throughout this realm amounted to no small yearly value, which by the article aforesaid were to be accrued to his majesty's possessions of the crown; and on the other part weighing in a multitude of free voices what moment the labours of a few settlers had been of heretofore in like cases, thought it better to stay and content them of lynn and coventry by granting to them to have and enjoy their guild lands etc. as they did before, than through their means, on whose importance, labour, and suggestions the great part of the lower house rested, to have the article defaced, and so his majesty to forego the whole lands throughout the realm. and for these respects, and also for avoiding of the promise which the said burgesses would have added for the guilds to that article, which might have ministered occasion to others to have laboured for the like, they resolved that certain of his highness's councillors, being of the lower house, should persuade with the said burgesses of lynn and coventry to desist from further speaking or labouring against the said article, upon promise to them that if they meddled no further against it, his majesty once having the guildable lands granted unto him by the act ... should make them over a new grant of the lands pertaining then unto their guilds etc. to be had and used to them as before: which thing the councillors did execute, as was desired, and thereby stayed the speakers against it, so as the act passed with the clause for the guildable lands accordingly[119]." [sidenote: _importance of the opposition._] this remarkable document, which canon dixon printed for the first time, is of surpassing interest, not only to the historian of the craft gilds but also to the student of constitutional history. the unscrupulous recourse of the government to jobbery and corruption is not more revolting than the evidence of the increasing constitutional power of the commons is interesting. it is evident from the account that when the country was with the house of commons the voice of the latter could not be disregarded. the upshot was that an understanding was entered into, to the effect that the gild lands were to be only surrendered _pro formâ_, and that they should not in fact be confiscated. in most cases this arrangement was adhered to, and when the great crisis was past it was seen that the gilds had lost their chapels and chantries with the fittings of these, but that their other possessions remained to them. [sidenote: _need of caution._] it has been pointed out how the increasing constitutional power of the commons could make itself felt when the opinion of the nation was at its back. that it undoubtedly was so at the present juncture cannot be doubted. the method which was adopted for carrying out the provisions of the act demonstrates fully how violently the country had been excited by the measure and by the danger to which the gild lands had been exposed. the usual way of putting such an act into execution would have been to send down commissioners to take particulars of the gilds and chantries and of their possessions. but royal commissioners had come to be looked upon, not without ample reason, as merely the formal heralds of state robbery. if therefore such commissioners were now sent out to manage the dissolution of the chantries and hospitals it was feared that disturbance would arise beyond the power of the government to manage. the more politic plan was therefore adopted of enlisting the people themselves in the cause as much as might be. [sidenote: _injunctions._] injunctions[120] were issued "to the parson, vicar, curat, chaunter, priests, churchwardens, and two of the most honest persons of the parish of ________ being no founders, patrons, donors, lessees, nor farmers of the promotions of corporations hereafter recited." these, or four of them, were to make a return as to the number of "chantries, hospitals, colleges, free chapels, fraternities, brotherhoods, guilds and salaries, or wages of stipendiary priests" in their parish, together with all particulars as to the revenues, ordinances, objects, abuses, names and titles of the same. full lists were to be drawn up of the lands and possessions of the chantries, colleges, and gilds, and enquiry was instituted respecting any recent dissolutions or alienations which might have been made in prospect of the recent act. the contingency alluded to in the last article has sufficed to provide some writers with an excuse for the measure destroying the chantries. no doubt the shock which the action of henry viii. in reference to the monasteries had given to all forms of corporate property had led many of the gilds to attempt the realization of their property. all such transactions were to be null and void. [sidenote: _gilds too powerful and popular to be wholly destroyed._] accordingly the commissioners went down to each town and hamlet and took full particulars of all matters concerning the gilds and chantries. "all such as have enye vestments or other goods of the co{y} [of mercers are ordered] to bring them in," in order to be sold, with the rest of the chantry fittings, "to the most p'fitt." the fate of the other kinds of property held by the gilds, such that is as could not be definitely made out to have been intended for the support of obits and the maintenance of lights, seems to have depended considerably on fortuitous circumstances. in each individual case the gild had to secure for itself the best terms it could. sometimes its property was obtained by the town, either by grant or by purchase[121]. at shrewsbury the almshouses of the drapers and mercers survived[122], and the vicar of s. almond's church in the same town still receives the yearly sum which the shearmen settled on the chaplain they maintained in that church. [sidenote: _perversion of the confiscated revenues._] [sidenote: _disastrous effects on gilds, and on craftsmen._] as for the object which the act itself alleged to have been the motive for the destruction of the chantries, namely the desire on the part of the government to devote the revenues to the foundation and improvement of grammar schools, it was forgotten as soon as parliament had separated. strype[123] is obliged to confess that the act was "grossly abused, as the act in the former king's reign for dissolving religious houses was. for though the public good was pretended thereby (and intended too, i hope), yet private men, in truth, had most of the benefit, and the king and commonwealth, the state of learning, and the condition of the poor, left as they were before, or worse. of this, great complaints were made by honest men: and some of the best and most conscientious preachers reproved it in the greatest auditories, as at paul's cross, and before the king himself. thomas lever, a fellow, and afterwards master of st john's college in cambridge, in a sermon before the king, in the year 1550 showed 'how those that pretended, that (beside the abolishing of superstition) with the lands of abbeys, colleges, and chantries, the king should be enriched, learning maintained, poverty relieved, and the commonwealth eased, purposely had enriched themselves.... and bringing in grammar schools, which these dissolved chantries were to serve for the founding of, he told the king plainly ... many grammar schools, and much charitable provision for the poor, be taken, sold and made away; to the great slander of you and your laws, to the utter discomfort of the poor, to the grievous offence of the people, to the most miserable drowning of youth in ignorance.... the king bore the slander, the poor felt the lack. but who had the profit of such things, he could not tell. but he knew well, and all the world saw, that the act made by the king's majesty and his lords and commons of his parliament, for maintenance of learning and relief of the poor, had served some as a fit instrument to rob learning, and to spoil the poor.'" the measure was indeed an act of spoliation devoid either of excuse in its cause or benefit in its results. the suppression of the monasteries could doubtless be amply excused, but no real justification is possible for this attempted wholesale seizure of institutions founded and maintained for the benefit of the poor, for the relief of suffering, and for the regulation of industry and police. as regards the last--the regulation of industry and police--the attempt was to a certain extent foiled, but in other respects it succeeded only too well. even on the gilds which escaped its effects were disastrous. their spiritual aspect was taken away; their prestige and authority very materially lessened. for they completely changed their nature. instead of being brotherhoods of workmen,--masters, journeymen, and apprentices,--striving together for the common good, they now became simply leagues of employers, companies of capitalists. the new powers which the masters obtained were used to still further oppress the craftsman, who was sufficiently degraded already through a variety of causes. he was too poor and powerless to be able to take any part in the new companies, and continued to sink deeper and deeper into degradation and misery. and this, too, in spite of the great and rapid development of trade which came simultaneously with this weakening blow at the authority and stability of the gilds. shrewsbury participated in this expansion of industry, and in the latter portion of the sixteenth century was peculiarly prosperous. there was no migration of its trade to the freer air of the neighbouring villages. the town was successful in retaining its monopoly. but these two causes, (i) the weakening of the gilds and their change of character, and (ii) the vast development of trade which the age was witnessing, combined to render the companies which survived the reformation quite unable to perform the work which the mediæval gilds had done. yet then above all was a controlling and a guiding power essential. elizabeth in consequence found that one of her first measures must be in remedy of this condition of affairs. chapter v. reorganisation of the gild-system. [sidenote: _reign of elizabeth._] elizabeth, on her accession, found that immediate reform was imperative in almost every department of state. the whole trade of the country was in a condition of agitation. everything seemed unsettled and insecure. [sidenote: _economic disturbances and industrial activity._] for the social upheaval which the reformation had brought about came in the train of a long period of economic disorder. the changes in the mode of cultivation had thrown the mass of the country population out of work. these were driven in large numbers by stress of circumstances into the towns, which were consequently overstocked with hands. at this juncture came the breaking down of the social police within the towns by the weakening of the gilds, while in the rural districts the dissolution of the monasteries took away from the poor their main hope of sustenance. the evils which such a policy of mere destruction must inevitably have brought upon the nation were averted through the national growth of wealth which the same period had witnessed. in the country parts the ejection of the easy-going old abbots had at least favoured the adoption of newer and improved methods of cultivation, so that a greater number of labourers came in time to be required on the estate[124]. but far more satisfactory for absorbing the surplusage of labour was the development which the period witnessed in manufacture. the woollen trade in the west, the worsted trade in the east, the iron trade in the south, and unmistakeable signs of the cloth trade in the north already showed how the foundations of england's wealth were laid. the writers of the period abound in notices of the unparalleled growth of trade and commerce. harrison laments "that every function and several vocation striveth with other, which of them should have all the water of commodity ran into her own cistern[125]." ample openings for capital broke through the old prejudices against the taking of interest. "usury" as it was called--"a trade brought in by the jews--is now perfectly practiced almost by every christian, and so commonly that he is accompted but for a fool that doth lend his money for nothing[126]." the english workman too was growing rich and lazy in the sunlight of prosperous times, so that "strangers" were frequently preferred to native craftsmen as "more reasonable in their takings, and less wasters of time by a great deal than our own[127]." this was the commencement of the period of shrewsbury's greatest prosperity. edward iv.'s erection of the court of the president and marches of wales (1478) was a material cause of the advent of peace to the borders. henry vii. could gratify national sentiment by tracing his descent from owen tudor: he gave it a practical turn by placing his son arthur at ludlow as ruler of the principality. the welshmen had thus begun to feel that their union with england was a real one before henry viii. finally incorporated the country with the english kingdom. [sidenote: _increase of comfort._] the cessation of welsh distractions had greatly favoured the advancement of shrewsbury. its grammar school--founded by edward vi.--as the entrance register of thomas ashton, its first headmaster, evidences, attracted scholars from a very wide area, and helped to bring renown and wealth to the town. shrewsbury too was the market to which the welsh cloth trade naturally gravitated, though the town had powerful rivals with which to contend. in the reign of elizabeth it employed six hundred shearmen in the woollen industry. camden, writing in 1586, describes it as "a fine city, well-inhabited and of good commerce, and by the industry of the citizens is very rich." from this period date the substantial homes of the tradesmen of tudor times which still survive in not inconsiderable numbers to give so much picturesqueness to the streets of the town. this was the era of improvements in domestic architecture. "if ever curious building did flourish in england," says harrison[128], "it is in these our years." ireland's mansion, which dates from 1570, and the house at the south-east corner of the market square, built by john lloyd in 1579, are existing examples of this "curious building." their elegance, no less than their stability, betokens the advancement of manners as well as of wealth. though these houses are "yet for the most part of strong timber" "brick or hard stone[129]" were beginning to be largely used. rowley's mansion (1618) is said to have been the first house in the town built wholly of these materials. everything combines to mark the reign of elizabeth as an epoch in the history of england. [sidenote: _economic policy._] the foundations of modern society were laid. we seem to come into the range of modern, as distinct from mediæval ideas and habits. the principal points in which modern society differs from mediæval are distinctly visible. the problem of poor relief in particular becomes acutely appreciated. the rise of capital is seen both in the modification of the usury laws, spoken of above, and in the enhancing of rents: prices hitherto dependent on custom and regulation must now be decided by competition. not less remarkable is the permanence which attended elizabeth's legislation. her economic settlement remained practically unchanged until the development of machinery altered those social conditions for which it had been adapted. [sidenote: _the statute 5 eliz. a turning-point in gild history._] she made trade regulation national instead of local. the act of 5 elizabeth, c. 14, is a turning-point in the history of the gilds. by it the whole system of gilds was re-modelled. their experience was by no means thrown away[130]. the information they had been accumulating was now appropriated by the state, which took over many of the functions they had hitherto performed. [sidenote: _many of the functions of the gilds taken over by the state._] what had long been common law now became statute law. the old minimum of seven years' apprenticeship was still enjoined as a necessary preliminary to the exercise of any craft. such apprentices when bound must be of an age less than twenty-one years, and could only be bound to householders in corporate or market towns. the proportion of journeymen to apprentices was regulated: there were to be three apprentices to one journeyman. the workman was protected from wilful dismissal. the hours of labour were defined, and justices of the peace or the town magistrates were to assess wages yearly at the easter sessions. all disputes between masters and servants were to be settled by the same authorities. the statute incorporated everything that was worth taking in the ordinances of the gilds and applied it nationally to the regulation of the country's trade. [sidenote: _trade-regulation becomes national instead of local._] [sidenote: _this allows development of new centres_] the results of such a revolution in industrial regulation were great both on trade in general and on the gilds. there was no longer any excuse for attempting to retard the development of the new centres which were springing up. the action of the government in the matter of the welsh woollen trade to which reference will presently be made shows how its policy was tending more and more towards allowing industry to take its own course, instead of attempting to restrict it to one market. [sidenote: _and encourages native workmen._] another important result of the act was the protection henceforth shown to the native in opposition to the alien workman. the aim of the government is now to regulate, protect, encourage, _native_ industry: the objects of its desire in the past had been to provide plenty for the consumer and to increase the strength of the country by extending its capacity for production. the royal support accorded in consequence to flemish and german traders had made them objects of bitter jealousy to the struggling english merchants[131]. this feeling of antipathy to alien workmen may be traced from the reign of richard ii. it becomes very marked in that of edward iv.[132] the composition of the mercers of shrewsbury, dated 1480-81, had forbidden the apprenticeship of anyone "that is of frenshe, flemyshe, irysh, douche, walshe or eny other nacyones not beyng at truse w{t} our sov'ayne lorde the kynge, but onlye mere englysshe borne." the new policy inaugurated by the statute of elizabeth is however not more national in its scope than in the preference it gives to native over foreign workmen. [sidenote: _results on gilds._] [sidenote: _many come to an end._] [sidenote: _many made more comprehensive._] [sidenote: _these sometimes come into conflict with royal officers._] the results on the gilds were more diverse. many came to an end. this was brought about through two causes: firstly, the need for many gilds ceased in consequence of the government now taking over their functions; secondly, in many places the numerous gilds were organized and amalgamated into one or two larger and amended corporations[133]. on the other hand the encouragement now afforded to native workmen caused a great incorporation of new trades into many old gilds, which became in consequence more comprehensive. in a large number of cases these performed their duties well for a long period. the new composition granted to the barbers of shrewsbury in 1662 places this fact upon record. occasionally they came in conflict with the royal officers appointed to scrutinise the wares, as was the case with the mercers and the anager at one period of the company's existence. [sidenote: _many become state agents._] not a few became the authorised agents of the state. several of the shrewsbury gilds were strengthened and encouraged with this object in view. new compositions were granted by elizabeth to the tailors and skinners in 1563 (confirmed in the next year), to the glovers in 1564 and to the shearmen in 1566. the drapers had also figured in the statute book on two occasions. the acts 8 elizabeth, c. 7, and 14 elizabeth, c. 12, had both been concerned with the affairs of the drapers of shrewsbury in their capacity of state agents for the regulation of industry[134]. in 1605 the company of drapers was incorporated by james i. and the smiths in 1621. the tailors received a composition in 1627 and another in 1686. the tanners were regulated by a new composition in 1639, the smiths in 1661, the barbers in 1662. the records of the mercers contain entries of "cessments for renewing the composition" in several years--1639, 1640, 1644, 1646 etc. [sidenote: _many new gilds formed._] in many places of recent growth, or where the old gilds had been destroyed without there having been any construction of fresh machinery to take their place, deliberate grants were made of new trade companies. the merchant adventurers of exeter were incorporated by elizabeth expressly for the purpose of supervising trade and "on account of the inconveniences arising from the excessive number of artificers and unskilled persons occupying the art or mystery of merchandising[135]." the charter which was granted "hominibus mistere marceriorum" at york in 1581 allowed them to form themselves into a company under officers chosen with the consent of the municipal authorities: the evils which necessitated the forming of the company being expressly stated to be such as had ensued from a lack of due regulation of trade[136]. at axbridge every householder, whether engaged in trade or not, was ordered, in 1614, to enrol himself in one of the three companies of the town[137]. [sidenote: _intimate connection with civic authorities._] in all these charters care was taken that the new corporations should be in due subordination to the town authorities[138]. in some places the mayor or other officer of the town was _ex officio_ head of the gild. sometimes it was granted to the "mayor, bailiffs and commonalty and their successors for ever, that they shall and may from time to time ordain, create, and establish, a society, gild, or fraternity, of one master and wardens of every art, mystery and occupation used or occupied, or hereafter to be used or occupied, within the said city and the suburbs thereof; and that they with the assistance of the wardens of the said arts and mysteries may make, constitute, ordain and establish laws, constitutions and ordinances for the public utility and profit and for the better rule and regiment of our city of winchester and of the mysteries of the citizens and inhabitants of the same[139]." such power of supervision was generally allowed to the municipal authorities. the head of the gild frequently took his oath of office before the mayor. the common council of the town had power to make such ordinances as it might think fit for the good estate, order and rule of the gildsmen. in certain cases too the mayor had power "to call and admitt unto the same free guild and burgeshipp of the said town such and soe many able and discreete persons as ... shall seeme fitt" and also "uppon any iust and lawful grounds and causes to disffranchise them[140]." under these conditions the public authorities of the town would be ready to support the companies. in some cases they were expressly ordered to do so. at shrewsbury we shall find the town bailiffs assisting the companies in the efforts of the latter to prevent the encroachments of foreigners. what all this change and reform amounted to was this. the system of gilds was re-organised and strengthened. part of the functions which the craft gilds had performed were taken over by the state. part were left to be still performed by the companies. the companies were in all cases brought into the closest possible connection with the town and the town authorities. as regards the designation of these 16th century trade associations it appears that they were generally termed societies or companies in public documents, probably because the name "gild" might seem to savour somewhat of the chantries and mass-priests. but in their own books and lists they still called themselves gilds and fraternities. [sidenote: _the new companies show permanence of gild-feeling._] though they differed essentially from these, as has been already pointed out, yet, viewed superficially, they might seem to have retained many of the features of the old gilds. in practice they bore no small share of the burden of public charities. they were also not unmindful of the wants of their members, though of course these now consisted of masters only. elizabeth's charter to the merchant adventurers of bristol ordered them to distribute yearly among twenty poor men twenty "vestes panneas" and to assist all of the company who were impoverished by mischance or otherwise. in their ordinances and compositions they were even more similar in appearance to the old gilds. the composition which elizabeth granted to the glovers of shrewsbury in 1564 is as strict as any mediæval regulation. it restricted all masters to a maximum of three apprentices. it confined each brother to a single shop, and to the selling of the products of his own work only. it authorised the wardens to seize corrupt or insufficient wares, and was altogether a most thorough piece of industrial regulation, entirely modelled on the lines of the old gild arrangements. other indications of the same spirit were not lacking. in 1621 "by and with the allowance and agreement of the right worthie" the town authorities, skins and fells were ordered to be purchased only between sunrise and sunset. as though the wardens of the barbers' company had not been sufficiently thorough in executing their duties the new composition which the company received from charles ii. in 1662 made provision for the appointment of a searcher and defined the duties appertaining to the office. the composition granted to the smiths in 1621 forbade the keeping of two shops by a single tradesman in the town, and disallowed the employment of foreigners for a longer period than a week without express permission obtained from the wardens. the composition of the tailors, granted in 1627, forbade the wearing of "any lyvere of any earle lorde barronett knight esquire or gentleman" while occupying any gild office; prohibited unfair competition and the employment of foreigners; and ordered that "noe pettie chapman or other p'son or p'sons shall buy any skynnes of furre" within the town. in the composition of 1686 the articles are repeated against indiscriminate admittance of foreigners, and against the piratical infringement of unfree persons on the province of the brethren. the "regulated companies" which arose about the same time were a further development of the same movement, but on a larger scale. in many respects indeed the craft gilds of the 14th and 15th centuries were but little different from the regulated companies of the 17th. admission was practically free on payment of a fine, the individual so received into membership being left to prosecute his trade in his own way, by his own means, and to his own particular profit. [sidenote: _though altered conditions of trade make their work difficult._] but the difficulties attendant on attempts to regulate expanding trade were daily growing greater and more numerous. "the false making and short lengths of all sortes of cloths and stuffes" necessitated the appointment by the mercers of two men "to oversee and look after" these things in 1638. the barbers too in 1662 empowered the stewards to search for bad materials. in 1639 the glovers' company was brought to something like a crisis "by the taking of many apprentices." it was thought necessary to dock each brother of one of the apprentices allowed by the elizabethan composition of 1564[141]. the frequency with which it was necessary to renew the compositions, the reiteration of the same articles,--against employing foreigners, against unfair competition, against neglect of the legal period of apprenticeship,--again shows the futility of such restrictions. actions against intruders even thus early figure frequently on the records. in those of the tailors and skinners the decision of the company under date of august 23, 1627, is recorded thus:--"the wardens and sitters met and agreed that the wardens should fetch process for intruders and implead them before the council in the marches, and mr chelmicke to draw the bill against them." the history of the welsh woollen trade in its connection with shrewsbury well exhibits the economic policy of the day, and as it therefore illustrates several of the points with which we have been concerned it may be given here at some length. [sidenote: _the features of the period seen in history of welsh woollen trade of shrewsbury._] [sidenote: _flourishing in reign of elizabeth,_] in the earlier part of the 16th century oswestry appears to have been the principal market for the welsh products. at shrewsbury however there was also a large woollen trade, as we learn from the act 8 elizabeth, cap. 7, entitled, "an act touching the drapers, cottoners, and frizers of shrewsbury." this statute recited that there had been time out of mind a gild of the art and mystery of drapers legally incorporated in shrewsbury, which had usually set on work above six hundred persons of the art or science of shearmen or frizers. of late however it had come to pass that divers persons, not being members of the said company, neither brought up in the use of the said trade, had "with great disorder, upon a mere covetous desire and mind, intromitted with and occupied the said trade of buying welsh cloth or lining, having no knowledge, experience or skill in the same." the result is asserted to be that the men of the company are impoverished and like to be brought to ruin unless speedy remedy be provided. it is therefore forbidden that anyone inhabiting shrewsbury shall "occupy the trade" of buying welsh woollens, unless he be free of the company of the drapers[142]. [sidenote: _but injured by over-regulation caused by selfish interests._] such a stringent regulation of trade met with directly contrary results to those which had been expected. a statute six years later acknowledges the failure of the measure, although it attempts to shift the blame from the shoulders of the government by representing the measure as one taken at the request of the drapers, instead of as a piece of state-craft[143]. the statute of 14 elizabeth, cap. 12, almost entirely repeals 8 elizabeth, cap. 7, "at the humble suit of the inhabitants of the said town and also of the said artificers, for whose benefit the said act was supposed to be provided[144].... for experience hath plainly taught in the said town that the said act hath not only not brought the good effect that then was hoped and surmised, but also hath been and now is like to be the very greatest cause of the impoverishing and undoing of the poor artificers and others at whose suit the said act was procured, for that there be now, sithence the making of the said act, much fewer persons to set them awork than afore." the whole incident is extremely interesting. it affords an excellent illustration of the way in which the gilds were in some places made state agents for carrying into effect 5 elizabeth, cap. 14. it also shows plainly that state intervention was beginning to be found harmful even by the men of that day. it evidences, moreover, how large the welsh trade of shrewsbury had already grown. oswestry however continued to be the chief emporium, and the drapers of shrewsbury repaired thither every monday for a long period after the date of the statutes we have been considering. [sidenote: _the drapers' company represents the interests of shrewsbury_] the company of the drapers was the most considerable and influential of the trade associations of shrewsbury. it numbered among its brethren the great majority of the chief burgesses of the town. its relations with the municipal corporation were, as would be expected, very intimate. it was the custom of the drapers to attend divine worship in the church of st alkmund before setting out for the oswestry market. in 1614 an order was made for the payment of six and eightpence to the clerk of the church for ringing the morning bell to prayers on monday mornings at six o'clock, not by the company as we should expect, but by the corporation[145]. [sidenote: _in opposition to oswestry, chester,_] there arose considerable competition for the lucrative market which the expansion of welsh industry was every day rendering more profitable. the inhabitants of chester made a vigorous attempt to obtain the erection in their city of "a staple for the cottons and friezes of north wales." shrewsbury was however enabled to prevent the completion of the scheme[146]. [sidenote: _london; especially the last._] the attempt of london to obtain a share in the trade seemed fraught with so much danger that the two rivals, shrewsbury and oswestry, made common cause against the intruder. the complaint was a general one that the merchants of london and their factors forestalled and engrossed productions before they came to market. these obnoxious practices seem to have been carried to a particularly distasteful length on the borders of wales. the transactions of a london dealer named thomas davies in 1619 appear to have brought matters to a crisis. there had been complaints about the same man, with others, previously. he had, by craft, obtained admission to the freedom of oswestry, by which means he could the better purchase the welsh cloths. these he then carried to london where he sold them "privately"[147]--that is, not in the proper and public market. the drapers of the two towns petitioned that the matter might be settled before the council[148]. being foiled in his attempt to plead his freedom of oswestry[148] davies appealed to the lord mayor and corporation of the metropolis to support his claims to trade throughout england in right of his citizenship of london[149]. the order of the council depriving the londoners of what they called their "ancient privilege" evoked strenuous opposition in the metropolis, and petitions numerously signed[150] were sent in asserting that the drapers of shrewsbury and oswestry had obtained the order by misrepresentation[151]. it does not appear that these petitions were successful, as thomas davies in his examination before the council a little later, expressed his willingness to resign his london freedom and to confine his dealings to oswestry. the fear of creating a precedent which would be largely followed, and with probable detriment to the trade of shrewsbury and oswestry, restrained the council from allowing him to do this[152]. not that the trade of shrewsbury, at any rate, was likely to decrease through any apathy on the part of its company of drapers. they were on the contrary singularly active at this time. and there was every need for them to be vigilant. for, with the object of stimulating the industry of the principality by allowing a more extensive market, and probably also as a result of the recent proceedings between the drapers of shrewsbury and oswestry and the citizens of london, a proclamation was issued allowing free trade in welsh cloths. the novelty pleased neither the welshmen[153] nor the merchants of the borders. to the latter the chief consequence seemed to be that the french company, which had the monopoly of exporting such goods to france, was enabled to purchase direct from the manufacturers in wales instead of through the drapers. the case was undoubtedly a hard one for the latter, who could not export. consequently their grievance was a real one, and, as they showed in their petition to the council, ruin stared them in the face unless they too might be allowed to export and so dispose of the large stock which was thrown on their hands[154]. but at the same time they were successfully endeavouring to draw the welsh trade from oswestry entirely to shrewsbury[155]. they had prepared for the attempt by obtaining a new charter from elizabeth's successor in 1605. that they had lost no time in putting their privileges to practical use is seen from their answer, four years later, to a mandate issued to them by thomas howard, earl of suffolk, who held the overlordship of oswestry, to desist from their efforts to undermine the trade of his town. their answer is entitled "the copy of a letter sent by the company to the earle of suffolk, lord chamberlen of his majesties househoulde, the 24 june 1609," and begins "right honerabell, "your letter bearing date the second of this june by the hands of mr kinaston wee have receaved: wherein ytt appeareth yo{r} lordship was informed that wee the societie of drapers wentt abowte by underarte and menesses to withdrawe your markett of walshe clothe from your towne of oswester." [sidenote: _all competitors worsted._] though they proceed to exculpate themselves from the charge, it is evident their intention was to pursue in the future the same policy which they had hitherto practised. in 1618 suffolk fell and oswestry was deprived of his support, so that in 1621 the shrewsbury drapers felt justified in resolving "that they will not buy cloth at oswestry or elsewhere than salop," in spite of the opposition of the clothiers of north wales[156], who, whether from convenience or old association, appeared to prefer oswestry as the locale of their market. however the drapers' company, assisted by the town[157], was sufficiently powerful to turn the proclamation allowing free trade in welsh cloths to their own good, and the market was drawn to shrewsbury in spite of orders by the council that it should be re-established at oswestry. the company did not hesitate to declare to the council itself that they were prepared, if necessary, to disregard its orders. by 1633 the market at oswestry had practically died out. it was held at shrewsbury on wednesdays, and afterwards on fridays. in 1649 the date was altered to thursday. [sidenote: _expansion of trade, and interlopers, destroy shrewsbury's monopoly._] to the market house flocked the welsh farmers, their bales of cloth being borne to the town on the backs of hardy ponies. the merchandise was exposed for sale in the large room upstairs. the drapers assembled beneath, and proceeded to make their purchases in order of seniority, according to ancient usage. the custom which the welshmen brought to the town easily accounts for the keenness of the competition to secure the market. for a long time the trade flourished. gradually however the action of "foreigners" in buying from the welsh manufacturers at their homes[158] broke down the monopoly which shrewsbury had so long enjoyed. at the end of the 18th century the sales had shrunk to miserable proportions. in 1803 the room over the market was relinquished by the drapers, and though a certain amount of welsh trade was still carried on, it withdrew gradually from the town until it finally left shrewsbury altogether. the drapers might have realised that the time for restricting trade to the freemen of their company was past. chapter vi. the degeneracy of the companies. [sidenote: _outside competition_] the competition of "interlopers" ruined the welsh trade of shrewsbury. it was not, as we have seen, from any lack of vigilance on the part of the companies. stimulated by their new compositions they became extremely active. as early as 1622 the actions against "foreigners" begin. soon afterwards they become of frequent occurrence until at length the books of the companies are almost mere records of a daily struggle for existence. [sidenote: _inevitable under the altered conditions of trade._] [sidenote: _but the companies themselves are unsatisfactory._] [sidenote: _friction with the town authorities;_] this was of course inevitable under the altered conditions of trade. but the companies exhibited in themselves all the radical defects which must pertain to such a system when it has outgrown its necessity. we have seen how free the earlier companies were from friction with the municipal authorities. in the 17th century this is changed. the propriety of setting up a may-pole had formerly been almost the only ground of conflict between the bailiffs and the craftsmen. but in 1639 we find that the tanners were thought to be overstepping their powers; the corporation appointed a committee to examine their composition. some seventeen years later, extreme measures had to be taken with regard to the same company. it was the custom for the charters to be inspected by the corporation periodically. in 1656 the tanners refused to comply with the request to produce their composition for the mayor's perusal, with the result that the company was prosecuted by the corporation[159]. the town had been willing to support the drapers in their measures to draw the welsh trade to shrewsbury, but it did not approve of the line of action they tried subsequently to take, namely, to limit all the trade to their own members. in 1653 regulations were framed to prevent the company "forestalling or engrossing the welsh flannels, cloaths etc.[160]" a more serious abuse transpired in connection with the feltmakers' company in 1667. they refused to make one who had been lawfully apprenticed to the trade in shrewsbury free of their company. on this occasion the mayor and aldermen exercised their right of supervision by ordering the wardens to admit the man, "and the mayor is desired to give him the oath of a freeman of the said company[161]." the importance of the mayor being thus empowered by the municipal authorities to administer the oath of admittance to one of the gilds is very great, and shows how real was the subordination of the latter to the town when the corporation chose to exert its rights. an order of the corporation[162] directing that burgesses only are to be elected wardens of the companies points to another abuse, the existence of which is proved by other evidence, viz., the admittance of non-residents in the town to membership in the companies on payment of a sufficiently large entrance fee. yet the extent to which corruption could go was seen forty years later when the corporation stultified itself by passing an order[163] allowing the haberdashers to elect persons, though they might not be burgesses, as wardens of their company. the general impression which such transactions leave is that extreme laxity prevailed in all departments. the town woke up for a moment in 1702 when the prospect perhaps of a harvest of unpaid fines induced them to make an effort to recover all such[164]. it is to be regretted that nothing remains to show to what extent the abuse had prevailed, nor how far the present effort was successful. the annual fine of the bakers' company was £3. 6_s._ 8_d._ which they appear to have generally paid with considerable reluctance[165]. the supply of provision to the town seems to have given much trouble in the early years of the eighteenth century. permission was given, in 1730, to the country butchers to sell in the town unless the town butchers could furnish meat in sufficient quantity. similar permission was accorded to the country bakers, if the bakers' company in the town would not pay their yearly fine. this they were unwilling, or unable, to do, and the country bakers were in consequence called in[166]. [sidenote: _with one another,_] the picture given by such incidents is not more significant of the degeneracy of the gilds than is that which the friction of the companies one with another presents. the mercers and the drapers had frequently made mutual complaints of intrusion: the mercers and the glovers also appear as great rivals in later years. in 1679 and at several subsequent dates there were actions at law between the two companies. in 1727 the records of the glovers show that similar actions were again in process. in 1721 the company unanimously agreed to withstand the tailors in the matter of widow steen, whom they pledge themselves to support; "and that shee may goe on with makeing brichess peruided shee dos not line them with flonen or buckrom or cennet onlye lether." [sidenote: _and with their own members._] nor is the evidence of intestine friction within the gilds themselves less significant of decay. so early as 1636 the mercers were fain to confess that the spirit of mutual assistance had disappeared, in the order which they passed to the effect that any combrother refusing to pay his assessment was to be distrained upon by authority of the wardens. there are several records of such distraints. in 1700 they find it necessary to pass an ordinance against freemen taking the sons of intruders as apprentices. the records of the other companies are, similarly, full of like evidences of demoralisation. the companies are declared to be impoverished by the taking of inordinate numbers of apprentices. the same sort of abuse is found in a complaint which appears in the glovers' books in 1656: "the company is much impoverished by the taking in of foreigners freemen such as have not served" their due apprenticeship. "the disorderly manner of electing wardens" about which the glovers have to "take account" in 1668 points to a great deterioration in the manner of holding gild meetings from that which has been sketched in a previous chapter[167]. worse than all is the confession that the gild brothers have sunk so low as to connive at intruders "for fraudulent lucre and gain[168]." the saddlers have the same sort of complaint in 1740. some brethren are infringing on the trades of others: resolutions are passed against such conduct. their books show that the resolutions were soon forgotten[169]. the other gilds experienced similar difficulties. in 1745 the barbers levied a fine of ten shillings on brethren who should so far forget themselves as to instruct "men or women servants to dress hair." the problem of regulating trade would have been difficult enough under the most favourable circumstances. with the gilds in the condition which we have been considering it was an impossibility. there was indeed a feature in the modern companies which at the outset deprived the attempt to utilise them beneficially for trade-purposes of all chance of success. [sidenote: _the gilds have changed to capitalist companies._] the old gilds, which had lived through the shocks of the reformation, and the elizabethan changes, had quite altered their character. the new ones which had arisen differed widely from the old fraternities. instead of being brotherhoods of craftsmen desirous of advancing the public weal, they were now mere societies of capitalists, intent only on private and personal advantage. as a writer of 1680 observes "most of our ancient corporations and guilds [have] become oppressive oligarchies[170]." there is a constant endeavour to restrict the companies to favoured individuals. every "foreigner" is subjected to a heavy fine, which grows larger in amount as the companies feel the trade slipping from their hands in spite of their desperate endeavours to restrict it. the new compositions continually point to this abuse by bringing back the fines to their original sum, or rather reducing them to an amount less inordinate than that which they have irregularly reached. the admission stamp of the saddlers was 4/in 1784. it reached 8/2 in 1799. in 1831 it was 20/2. the mercers' fine was fixed at £40. 6_s._ 8_d._ in 1789, "besides fees." in 1823 it had sunk to £20. the mercers were of course one of the richest of the companies, yet the sum was a large one to pay for the privilege of opening a shop in a provincial town. other means to restrict themselves were also attempted. increase in the number of apprentices was viewed with disfavour. there are frequent complaints of the "impoverishment" of the companies through the indiscriminate admittance of "foreigners." all the evidence shows how entirely they have degenerated into mere societies of capitalists. their records almost decline into bald columns of pounds, shillings and pence. for it was to this completeness of degradation that the social body had sunk. the merest selfishness was lauded as a patriotic virtue. private gain was recommended as a public benefit. social disintegration and industrial anarchy ruled supreme, and when commercial success had come to be looked upon as the one avenue to honour and advancement, it was not to be expected that the companies would escape the general infection. they formed simply one among many means by which the individual was enabled to fill his own pockets at the cost of a suffering and squalid populace. this change in their character, which became more marked as time went by, naturally was not unattended by a change in their government. all authority became engrossed by the richer members. the four assistants with the wardens and stewards formed a close aristocratic board. brentano, speaking it would appear more particularly of the london companies, says[171] the king nominated the first members of this court and afterwards as vacancies occurred they were filled by co-optation. this was not exactly the case with the shrewsbury companies. there the annual meeting[172] retained a considerable power in the election of officers to the last. in some cases the assistants or four men were elected freely by the assembled combrethren, in others two only were thus elected, the two retiring wardens completing the number. the tailors' composition of 1563 provided that the two wardens should be elected by the whole gild: the four assistants were then nominated by these wardens "for advising them in the government of the gild." the wardens and assistants then proceeded to nominate the two stewards. [sidenote: _the companies and the close corporations._] they were thus as exclusive and aristocratic as the town corporations had become. the degeneracy of the latter had been largely intensified by the degeneracy of the former. for the principal members of the companies were the principal members of the town corporation, which had silently, since the fourteenth century, been usurping the ancient powers of the general body of the burgesses. it was the companies which mainly profited by it. they profited indirectly, by the influence which they exercised through individual members on the town council, which had obtained part of the functions of the leet. they profited directly as they themselves acquired definitely other of the powers of the court leet. they became the chief or the sole medium for the acquisition of municipal freedom, and were distinct town organs for the regulation of trade and industry. [sidenote: _the journeymen no longer in the companies._] it is by reason of the widely-reaching influence of their degeneracy that their later history is of importance. for as regards the poorer members of society their history is useless. the workman disappears from their books. that he no longer was looked upon as the brother member of the masters is quite evident. "our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease, we go when we will, and we come when we please[173]." [sidenote: _they begin to form benefit societies, animated by much of the old gild-spirit._] the most general means which the poor adopted to help themselves was the formation of friendly societies. these arose in great numbers during the 18th century. the companies were not slow in helping to swell public subscriptions and in assisting to pauperise the labouring class. to the necessity of rendering real help to their unfortunate workmen they were however entirely oblivious. this side of the work performed by the old gilds had been almost wholly overlooked by the post-reformation companies, though it had been one of the most important of their predecessors' functions. it was found that society could not get along without something of the kind, and as the higher companies would not perform the work, the lower craftsmen found it necessary to do it themselves. here was a distinct severance of interest between employers and workmen, yet it does not seem unlikely that it was the old gilds themselves which formed the models for the new societies. at any rate the analogies between the gilds and the benefit societies, in the earlier phases of the latter, and looking at the social and religious side of the former, are very striking[174]. the simple rules of trade association show as much concern for the morals of members as did the charters of the gilds: they had their annual feast, provided by subscription: they usually went in their procession to the parish church on the day of the feast. they were perhaps the earliest signs of that necessary return to something like the old gild system which the later trades unions have done so much to bring about. the companies watched them grow up without a twinge of conscience, though it was their own neglect of duty which made such associations an absolute necessity. being the only forms of combination which were left unmolested by the government they were extensively formed, and this was well, for the need of them was very great. [sidenote: _difficulties of reform; members would not, state would not, the town authorities would not._] in spite of unmistakeable signs of inevitable changes the companies refused to take warning. their reform was indeed difficult, and, as it proved, impossible. the workmen as we have seen could not, the masters would not, take steps in this direction. the state derived too good an income from them to be anxious for a change. the admission stamps, constantly increasing in amount, were a profitable source of revenue. the notices of "cessments for renewing the composition" are frequent. there were also continual contributions of men and money for the "exigencies of the state[175]." in 1798 the mercers voted £100 annually to the government "during the continuance of the war." the town also seemed to profit by them. they were obliged, some of them at all events, to exhibit their compositions annually or periodically to the mayor and pay a customary fine on doing so. they continued to be of some service to the community in the inefficient condition of the public police. their social utility to the town was also in their favour. in 1608 the corporation provided materials in case of fire, when each of the companies was required to maintain its proper proportion of hooks and buckets. entries relating to the "spout or water engine" are frequent in their records. in aid of procuring public benefits the companies were not backward. their chests were readily opened to assist towards improvements in the town, such as widening of streets, erection of bridges and the like. to the last also they preserved something of their charitable character, though its exercise was as open to criticism as other forms of poor relief during the eighteenth century. nevertheless if the membership lists of the drapers and the mercers could be made public they would be found to contain the majority of the public benefactors of shrewsbury during this period. public charities, such as the infirmary and the lancaster school received annual subscriptions until the companies came to an end. the necessity of continuing the annuities to the inmates of s. chad's almshouses formed a chief argument against the dissolution of the mercers' company. "the worshipful company of drapers" still subscribes to schools and charities year by year. [sidenote: _contemporaneous opinion of the companies._] in these circumstances we cannot wonder that the old companies found many champions. the following letter is valuable as affording a view of the contemporaneous opinion held of the gilds by a man of ordinary common sense and average education. it appeared in the _salopian journal_ of august 27, 1823. it was evoked by a decision of the judges of assize in favour of the mercers' company in an important case to which reference will be made in a later page. it was addressed to the editor of the newspaper and commenced- "sir, as the company commonly called 'the united company of mercers, grocers, ironmongers, and goldsmiths' in this town have established the validity of their ancient customs by a suit at law of which there is no account of their having done so since the time when the king's court for the marches of wales was held at ludlow; at which time and place the council then, who held the pleas, determined also a like suit in their favour: and as there is much argument for and against the existence and usage of this incorporate body; permit me to lay before the public an outline of both, that the subject at least might be better understood than we often hear it repeated. it is contended against, as exercising an arbitrary monopoly of trade, to the detriment and oppression of the subjects of the realm; and which is moreover injurious to the town itself, by depriving the trade thereof of that competition which brings down the articles of manufacture to a fair marketable value for the supply of its inhabitants. these are the charges against them, which if indeed they could be substantiated would be sufficient to show that their existence was an evil. but let us look at the facts on the other side of the question, and see whether there is any reality in these serious charges. in the first place the companies hold it requisite, in order to be free of their body, that all but the sons of freemen shall serve a regular apprenticeship to one of the corporation. now in this they have been sanctioned and dictated to by the ancient law of the land ... that youths might be properly taught their respective arts, and that the community might not be imposed upon by pretenders to that which they were not properly acquainted with. on foreigners or such as have not served a regular apprenticeship they impose a fine of £20, before they will admit them as freemen, and certainly in doing this they do not over-rate a seven years' servitude, when the one is made equivalent to the other. let us now see to the application of the money. a fund is made of it, somewhat similar to 'benefit societies.' no part of it is applied to private purposes; for even the company's annual feast, about which there is so much said, is not always at the expense of the fund, but [is] borne individually; and the utility of such a feast to promote harmony and goodwill, is acknowledged by all societies[176]. but further, these funds are confined to the relief of decayed and deserving members of the companies[177], and to every charitable and public emergency wherein the general interest or welfare of the town is concerned; and their annual disbursements, for centuries past, have been regularly serviceable to the community at large as well as to individual cases of distress. this the account of their expenditure will show. now, then this monopoly, as it is called, extends no further than to exact an apprenticeship of seven years, or to a fine of £20; the former sanctioned by law and the latter a sum of no comparative amount to a respectable person, desirous of establishing a respectable trade, especially if there be any truth in the argument, that goods are sold by this corporate body for more money than they would be, if no such corporation existed. neither can the fine be called excessive, because it is added to a stock which he from whom it is exacted directs in common to be applied to the common good; and which he may himself, as many others have done in cases of distress, receive back again with large additions. but the increased population of birmingham and manchester is brought forward as a proof of towns flourishing where trade is what is called _free_. let us look a little into this argument. are not the wares vended in these places proverbially _bad_? do not all manner of imposters from these places deluge the country with their spurious goods, and impose them upon the unwary part of the public? are these towns to be compared with london, liverpool, bristol, for respectability of their trade, for the goodness and cheapness of their articles, when the quality is taken into account? yet the trade of these latter towns is regulated by corporations. i contend therefore that the corporation in question is _beneficial_ to this town and county, inasmuch as it tends to protect it from the inundations of empirics and imposters, while it holds out no hindrance to the fair and honest dealer who has a mind to compete with its respectable tradesmen and settle amongst them. i am not in trade myself; but hope i shall always see my native town preserved from that sort of population which it has never yet been disgraced with. i have the honour to be, mr editor, in technical language, a combrother of the guild. shrewsbury, aug. 22, 1823." chapter vii. shrewsbury show. [sidenote: _characteristic features of the middle ages._] a strange glamour hangs around the middle ages. we know so little of man's actual life in those years,--and what little we do know seems to partake so largely of the mysterious and the picturesque--all, his modes of life and manners of thought are so far removed from our own,--that mediæval history would easily resolve itself into an enchanting pageant bright with its colour and bewildering with its contradictions. it is perhaps in the strange contrasts which are presented to us that its chief wonder is found. in those years we find lust and rapine, and sacrilege and tyranny, side by side with the fairest forms of chivalry[178], the most devoted readiness to champion the cause of religion, the firmest attachment to the forms of law[179]. we see only the prominent lights and the great shadows of the picture, but all that should go to make it human and comprehensible to us is hidden under the dust of centuries. we have noticed the existence of something of this contradictory spirit in the view we have had of the early gilds[180]. the elevated ideal which they set before their members must of course have been far above the level which was ever actually reached. we may smile at their vain attempts after the impossible, yet we cannot but allow that their perseverance betokens the widespread acceptance of a nobler conception of human life than is common in our own too merely practical age. to the men of those days there seemed no great incongruity in the lofty ideals of the gild-compositions and the lower standard which the brethren actually attained. it added but another to the many striking contrasts which environed their daily life. [sidenote: _fondness for pageantry._] [sidenote: _its social importance._] that life was one passed largely in dulness and perhaps comparative squalor. but the occasions of colour and merriment were not few. each season had its festivities, social and religious, when rich and poor met on something like equal ground in the rude merry-making. this feature in ordinary life was not without its social importance, and if only for this reason no account of the gilds would be complete which failed to take notice of their processions and, in so doing, of the general life and habits of the brethren at the different epochs of gild history. we have now nothing to take the place of those occasions of mutual enjoyment and mirth, when "ceremony doff'd his pride" without censure, when the bashful apprentice might perhaps tread a measure with his master's daughter, and when the condescending mistress of the house might even allow herself to be led out for a dance by one or other of her goodman's journeymen. "a christmas gambol oft would cheer a poor man's heart through half the year[181]." [sidenote: _the corpus christi procession._] we have already seen how important an influence religious feelings had in the actions of the gilds. among the yearly festivals the feast of corpus christi soon became one of the most splendid for pomp and pageantry, and to it the gilds were naturally attracted. some indeed existed with the primary object of ensuring the glory of this particular feast. most important of these was the corpus christi gild at york[182]. the gild of the holy trinity, also at york, concerned itself with the annual production of a religious play illustrating the lord's prayer. the gilds of s. helen (which represented the invention of the cross), of s. mary, and of corpus christi, at beverley[183], were other famous fraternities with similar objects. at stamford was one which maintained a secular play[184]. in most towns in england it became the custom for the gilds, each with its banners and insignia, to accompany the corpus christi procession: in some places the event seems to have become especially picturesque. at coventry[185] and also at shrewsbury, the procession has lasted in some sort down to our own day[186]. at the former city lady godiva has even lately ridden, though at fitful and uncertain intervals: at the latter town, although the procession has now become a thing of the past, it is little more than a decade since "shrewsbury show" was to be seen annually, on the monday following the feast of corpus christi, passing along under the eaves of the timbered houses of the old border town. [sidenote: _the pageants of the gilds._] the prominence which the charters of the shrewsbury gilds gave to the procession has been sufficiently pointed out already. every care was taken to secure its fitting glory and splendour. among the goods of the companies which the inventories name are "baners," "baners for ye mynstrellys werying," "skukions for my'strells," "torches," "coots of sense," "stondarts of mayle," "other pec's of mayle," besides many swords and halberts, and the like. these various properties decked out the pageant which each gild contributed to the common procession. it was exhibited by means of a wooden scaffold on wheels, differing probably but little in appearance from the drays or trollies which were utilised in later years. dugdale in his _antiquities of warwickshire_ relates that "before the suppression of the monasteries this city[187] was very famous for the pageants that were played therein upon corpus christi day; which, occasioning very great confluence of people thither from far and near, was of no small benefit thereto: which pageants being acted with mighty state and reverence by the friars of this house had theaters for the several scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city for the better advantage of the spectators." at shrewsbury there appears never to have been an elaborate miracle play presented by the crafts[188]. most likely the show early took that form which it exhibited in the later times of which we have more definite record. the gilds of the town walked in the procession, each member bearing, in mediæval days, a light "in honour of the blessed sacrament," the officers wearing their liveries and carrying the banners and other insignia, and thus escorting a tableau more or less appropriate to the craft. no small expense and even taste appears to have been expended on these representations, though their precise suitability it is in some cases difficult to appreciate. before reformation times the tableaux were generally of a biblical or ecclesiastical nature: after the 16th century they were usually mythological or historical. thus the tailors were presided over by adam and eve "the first of their craft," or by queen elizabeth in ruffles of right royal magnitude. the shearmen or clothworkers had a personation of bishop blasius, with a black mitre of wool and doubtless also the wool-comb with which he had been tortured at his martyrdom. the place of the saint was subsequently usurped by the king--edward iv., who was remembered as having especially cultivated the good offices of the wool-merchants. the skinners and glovers were ruled by the king of morocco, whose "cote" was an expensive item in their accounts; they had also an elaborate mechanical stag accompanied by huntsmen sounding bugle blasts. the smiths were appropriately represented by vulcan, or a knight in black armour "supported by two attendants who occasionally fired off blunderbusses." the painters were accustomed to find their best representative of later years in a cheery-looking rubens brandishing palette and brush, while the bricklayers, for some occult reason, considered themselves adequately represented by bluff king hal. the twin saints crispin and crispianus patronised the shoemakers, and s. katharine (at a spinning wheel) the barbers. venus and ceres presided over the bakers. [sidenote: _the reformation._] [sidenote: _mary._] at the reformation the corpus christi procession became shorn of its splendour even before it altogether ceased under edward vi. with mary's attempt to revive the old order efforts were made to restore the show in its pristine grandeur, though edward vi.'s pillaging of the gilds had rendered the furnishing of the lights and vestments a matter of serious difficulty. at shrewsbury the municipal authorities endeavoured to keep up the mystery plays by means of contributions from the various companies. [sidenote: _elizabeth._] the accession of elizabeth was not likely to do any harm to the plays and pageants, though the outward reason for their performance might be changed. elizabeth fully perceived the political and social usefulness of such festivities: her provincial progresses were a succession of brilliant shows and interludes which served a useful purpose in diverting the nation's attention from the graver dangers which threatened england during the queen's eventful reign. elizabeth was also naturally fond of gaiety and wit, and the tone of the people from the highest to the lowest was dramatic. the court had its "master of the revels," the universities and inns of court had their regular plays. interludes were provided for the queen's entertainment as she moved from town to town both at the houses of the higher gentry and by the common people. they were indeed the ordinary means by which honour was paid to any very distinguished visitor. the shrewsbury playwright was thomas ashton the first master of the grammar school. his theatre was the open ground without the walls, the quarrell or quarry. the season of the year at which these performances of thomas ashton took place was whitsuntide, at which time chester was also engaged in its more famous productions. it is to be regretted that no records[189] remain of these shrewsbury plays, or a valuable addition might be made to the scanty collections of such antiquities which have been made public. these academic entertainments did not supplant the old annual procession (the date of which was transferred to the monday following the feast of corpus christi) which continued apparently until the power of the puritans became too strong to admit of its longer existence. already that influence was at work, and elizabeth had many detractors among those of the stricter persuasion. the character of their sternness, as well as the nature of their dissatisfaction at the gaiety which elizabeth fostered, is well exemplified at shrewsbury in the incident of the shearmen's tree. the event is also noteworthy as being the only occasion until later days on which anything like friction occurred between the companies and the municipal corporation[190]. [sidenote: _the shearmen's tree._] the woollen trade, as we have seen[191], gave occupation to a very large number of shearmen. these belonged to the more unskilled class of labourers, the work they performed being simply that of preparing the wool for the later stages of manufacture. they were precisely the class to fail to appreciate the religious changes, and such as would be likely to resort to the physical force argument on any occasion. it was also to such men that the revelry of christmastide, maytime, and the like were most precious. their life was a hard and colourless one, and they would for this reason cling desperately to the old occasions of merriment. the festival which appears to have been particularly odious to the puritans was that of may day, when, stow[192] tells us, it was the custom for the citizens "of all estates" to have their "mayings," and to "fetch in maypoles, with divers warlike shows, with good archers, morris dancers, and other devices for pastime all the day long; and toward the evening they had stage plays, and bonfires in the streets." to the youth of the town it was a sufficiently harmless summer holiday. to the precise it was plainly and purely a heathen survival. at shrewsbury they were early in active antagonism to it. in 1583 there occurred "soom contrav'sie about the settinge upp of maye poales and bonfyers mackinge and erection of treese before the sherman's haule and other places[193]," though apparently without immediate effect, for two years later appears another entry "pd. for cutting down the tree, and the journeymen to spend xv{d}.[194]" but it was not long before the puritans prevailed. the may day merry-making was stopped and even the gild festival prohibited. "this yeare [1590-1] and the 6 day of june beinge soondaye and the festivall day of the co{y} of the shearmen of salop aboute the settinge upp of a greene tree by serte yonge men of the saide co{y} before their hall doore as of many years before have been acostomid but preachid against by the publicke precher there and commawndid by the baylyffs that non sutche shoulde be usid, and for the disobedience therein theye were put in prison and a privey sessions called and there also indicted and still remayne untill the next towne sessions for further triall[195]." the letter of the law however was in their favour. at the sessions the judges decided that the tree should be erected and "usyd as heretofore have be' so it be don syvely and in lovynge order w{th}out contencion[196]." but the soreness remained and the shearmen were very turbulent for a long period. a curious entry in 1596 betokens a continuance of the friction: "p{d} oure fyne for not rerynge of cappes to mr bayliffe 3/4[197]." for puritan influence had waxed stronger, and at length it was "agreed that there shall not be hereafter any interludes or playes within this town or liberties uppon anye soundays or in the night tyme. neyther shall there be any playinge at footballe, or at hiltes or wastrells, or beare baytinge, within the walles of this towne[198]." [sidenote: _commonwealth._] [sidenote: _the restoration._] during the civil wars and under the rule of the commonwealth the inhabitants of the town were too heavily burdened with taxes for the maintenance of soldiers and for the repairs of the walls (for which the companies were severally assessed) to have much wealth to expend on revelry and merry-making, even had puritan sourness admitted any such. but the reaction consequent on the restoration brought back the glory to shrewsbury. the agriculture of the district had now quite recovered from the long-distant welsh ravages: the internal trade of the town was also very considerable. shrewsbury was therefore a place of no small importance. it played the part of a local metropolis in which the fashions of the capital were mimicked by the wealthy tradesfolk, their wives and daughters, and the country gentry and their families. for neither class could often go to london. travelling was a serious affair not lightly to be undertaken. consequently, just as the country gentleman now spends a portion of the year in london, so his ancestor in the seventeenth century made the adjacent county town his residence at certain seasons. besides "he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festivals and races.... there were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, the wool, and the hops of the surrounding country were exposed for sale.... there were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery[199]." in shrewsbury did the provincial beaux and belles promenade by the side of the severn and in the abbey gardens. these latter were especially attractive. they were laid out "with gravell walks set full of all sorts of greens--orange and lemmon trees.... out of this went another garden much larger with severall fine grass walks kept exactly cut and roled for company to walk in: every wednesday most of y{e} town y{e} ladies and gentlemen walk there as in st james's parke, and there are abundance of people of quality lives in shrewsbury[200]." farquahar in his sprightly comedy _the recruiting officer_ describes the lively doings of the same "people of quality," and also of the more stolid burghers. "i have drawn," he says, "the justice and the clown in their _puris naturalibus_; the one an apprehensive, sturdy, brave blockhead; and the other a worthy, honest, generous gentleman, hearty in his country's cause and of as good an understanding as i could give him, which i must confess is far short of his own." farquahar seems to have obtained a particularly good impression of the worthy salopians. he dedicates his comedy to "all friends round the wrekin." "i was stranger to everything in salop but its character of loyalty, the number of its inhabitants, the alacrity of the gentry in recruiting the army, with their generous and hospitable reception of strangers. this character i found so amply verify'd in every particular that you made recruiting, which is the greatest fatigue upon earth to other, to be the greatest pleasure in the world to me[201]." shrewsbury was one of the gayest of those many provincial capitals "out of which the great wen of london has sucked all the life[202]." [sidenote: _shrewsbury show in 17th century._] farquhar may have seen the old show, which the restoration had naturally brought back, wend its noisy way to kingsland. the procession itself was easily rehabilitated, but the arbours on kingsland, where the day was spent in merrymaking, called for much attention. great activity was evinced in their repair, for they had fallen into sad decay during the hard rule of the puritans. some of the companies adorned their arbours with gateways, arms and mottoes, "dyalls," and the like. most of the gateways were of wood, but in 1679 the shoemakers company erected a handsome stone portal, which a few years subsequently they adorned with figures of their patron saints, crispin and crispianus. as though the events of a century previous were still fresh in men's minds, the legend was painted underneath, "we are but images of stonne do us no harme--we can do nonne." about this time it is evident the show was in a very prosperous condition. puritanism had not taken any real hold on the country, and the church was restored, and old ways of thinking and acting brought back, without any disturbance or opposition[203]. even in the companies the religious element which was so strong in the earlier gilds was not entirely wanting: the day's proceedings included a sermon in the church[204]. in the morning the wardens and members met in the open space before the castle, whence they passed in a merry procession through the gaily decked streets to kingsland. there each gild had its arbour surrounded by trees and supplied with tables and benches. the mayor and corporation used to attend, and were accustomed to visit each arbour in succession. the remainder of the day passed in festivity and merriment, and the craftsmen with their friends returned home in the evening "much invigorated with the essence of barley-corn," as a writer of fifty years ago expresses it. [sidenote: _degeneracy._] but the degeneracy of the revived show was very apparent. the dropping off of the sermons deprived the companies of the last trace of that strong religious element which had characterised their mediæval ancestors. a private letter of 1811 says, "shrewsbury show was on the 19th [of june] but i did not go to it. that, like other things, is getting much worse." the drapers and mercers had never gone to kingsland, and gradually the other companies began to withdraw from the show. the formal procession became confined practically to apprentices[205], while the masters contented themselves with a dinner at one of the inns of the town[206]. everything was significant of the approaching end of the pageant. [sidenote: _reform agitation tends to check degeneracy, but reform acts fatal to the show._] when the reform agitation threatened to deprive the companies of their trading privileges at no distant period, and later, when it had succeeded in doing so, attempts seem to have been made to bring into prominence their social aspect[207], and the procession was again reinvigorated. the pomp which signalised george the fourth's coronation may also have given a stimulus to pageantry. the arbours were repaired and rebuilt, and the year 1849 witnessed a grand revival of the procession. attempts in this direction were now not infrequent, but were necessarily spasmodic. yet the time-honoured show was found to be possessed of wonderful vitality. when the municipal corporations act destroyed the exclusive privileges of trading which the companies possessed they clung to their annual feast and to the yearly procession, for which they retained the arbours at some expense and self-denial. gradually however as the successive freemen died the arbours reverted one by one to the corporation of the town; the other gild property, which was not already divided, was shared among surviving members, or fell through debt or similar causes into other hands. kingsland itself was to revert to the town at the decease of the last of the members of the companies, according to an arrangement concluded in 1862. even still the old show was hard to kill. in spite of much that was saddening, and much degradation, the procession lingered on till some twelve or fourteen years ago, when it died a natural death. so another link with the past was broken, and another spot of colour wiped away from these duller days of uniformity and routine. chapter viii. the end of the companies. [sidenote: _failure of efforts to restrict trade._] the system of elaborate organisation by which men had regulated trade in the past had given way to an equally complete system of individualism. confused philosophical reasoning, combined with the decay of old means of regulation, had produced this anti-social state of things. individual competition, in uncontrolled energy, reigned supreme amid almost incredible suffering and squalor. everything which might tend to check the progress of the devastation was looked upon with suspicion and swept swiftly out of the way. all the old restraints were wanting, and self-interest alone formed the mainspring of action. to this fetish everything was sacrificed--men's bodies and men's principles. commercial dealings took the most questionable forms: adulteration of products went on unchecked by any qualms of honesty. the companies had long ago ceased to make any attempts in the direction of industrial regulation. the whole efforts of their members were concentrated on the vain endeavour to restrict trade to the chartered towns. yet even the apologist for the companies, quoted at the end of the sixth chapter, was obliged to allow that in this they had failed. the result of the action of the "oppressive oligarchies" was the "excluding or discouraging the english subjects from trading in our greatest and best situated towns, where the markets are[208]." shrewsbury saw the free towns around growing up to importance and outstripping her in the race for prosperity. birmingham, not far distant, was already famous. another free town which rose rapidly was manchester, where most of the new industries did not come under the apprenticeship act, and were consequently free and unshackled. such formidable rivals drew away trade from the old privileged boroughs. the companies were quite unable to retain their monopolies. but more than this. even the measure of commercial prosperity which shrewsbury possessed--it was not small--cannot be in any appreciable degree ascribed to the companies. a writer of 1825[209] who considers the trade of the town at that date by no means "inconsiderable[210]" attributes the fact to anything rather than the "chartered companies[211]." "here are two very large linen factories, besides several manufactories for starch, soap, flannels, cotton goods, an extensive iron and brass foundry, two ale and porter breweries, a spirit distillery, etc.[212]" "its fabrication of threads, linen cloths etc. etc. stands unrivalled; whilst the more common articles of domestic life are executed in a stile of neatness, certainly equal, if not superior, to those of any other place of similar size[213]." the various causes which he looks upon as conducing to this prosperity he sets forth with considerable detail: "its contiguity to the principality, the facility which it possesses for the importation and exportation of goods, by means of its noble river and canals, and its situation as the capital of an extensive and populous county, combine to give it many advantages over a variety of places equally insular[214]." that the companies had any hand in ministering to this prosperity, or even served any useful purpose, seems never to have so much as occurred to him. [sidenote: _struggle against intruders_] yet they were putting their charters to the utmost use. they used every means in their power to hold the trade. they obtained the assistance of the municipal officers in seeking out and expelling intruders, even hawkers and pedlars. actions at law became rapidly more frequent, until at last the life of the companies becomes one long effort to compel intruders to take up their freedom by paying the necessary fines. the barbers even went so far as to prosecute men and women-servants for presuming to dress their masters' and mistresses' hair. though these measures were unsuccessful in attaining their object they were not without most important results. [sidenote: _impoverishes the companies,_] in the first place the companies saw their stock become rapidly impoverished, and themselves on the verge of bankruptcy. so early as 1692 the mercers were obliged to raise £50 by means of mortgage, and in the next year they were twice forced to sell some of their property. the grocers had, half a century previously[215], noted with sorrow how "the stock of the company yearly decreaseth." the barbers so early as 1744 resolve to spend no more money at show time "except the third part of the weavers' bill." the saddlers' stock in the three per cents. has to be sold to defray the charges of actions against intruders in 1810, and about the same time the bakers' arbour was seized "on account of sustained charges against the company in an action for supposed infringement of their rights." even the wealthy company of the drapers had been compelled to relinquish their annual holiday, at which open house was kept for town and neighbourhood, in 1781. [sidenote: _and calls down public odium on them._] but worse perhaps than this was the public odium they brought upon themselves. that this was so was acknowledged in formal meeting at the close of their public life, yet it had existed long before and grew daily stronger. [sidenote: _other signs of decay._] [sidenote: _internal disorder._] [sidenote: _accounts carelessly kept._] [sidenote: _trade leaves them._] these two causes would have been alone sufficient to bring about the downfall of the companies. but there were other signs of decay in plenty. internal disorder was adding to the degradation into which the once honourable associations were falling. even in 1668 the glovers are compelled to take into account "the disorderly manner of making wardens." so late as 1832 the saddlers inflict a fine on their steward for attending meetings in a state of intoxication. the books are much less carefully kept. the glovers' company came to an untimely end in 1810 through maladministration and carelessness in dealing with the yearly balance sheet[216]. in 1822 so great a company as the mercers' is found appointing a committee to search for the charter, which is ultimately found in the hands of a private individual whose magnanimity in surrendering what did not belong to him is highly praised by a formal resolution[217]. we have seen already how trade had fallen off. in 1770 a member of the saddlers' company paid five guineas "to be for ever excused from serving the office of steward or warden." private interest alone formed the motive of action in commercial dealings. the individual knew nothing of obligations due to society. [sidenote: _general demoralisation._] society was indeed in a state of rottenness. outwardly there was plentiful decorum; really there was sufficient sham with its usual concomitant, laxity of morals, in a very marked degree[218]. it could hardly be expected that this should be otherwise in the general disregard which prevailed of all finer instincts: questionable commercial dealings and adulteration of products, on the one hand, were naturally accompanied by brutality and squalor on the other. commercial success was the only criterion, and as the companies could not stand the test of this touchstone of merit they were doomed. [sidenote: _efforts to delay the end._] the gilds of workmen in building trades had been seriously affected, if not destroyed, long before by the statute 2 and 3 edward vi. cap. 15, which allowed "any freemason, roughmason, carpenter, bricklayer, plasterer," etc. "borne in this realme or made denizon, to work in any of the saide crafts in anye cittie boroughe or towne corporate ... albeit the saide p'son or p'sons ... doe not inhabyte or dwell in the cittee borough or towne corporate ... nor be free of the same." but in all other trades the law had upheld the companies, and associations strong as these were in antiquity were not to be destroyed without a struggle. in the early years of the nineteenth century they began to think about internal reformation, which, had it been accomplished with singleness of purpose, might perhaps have secured their further usefulness and life. the expenses connected with the annual feasts were regulated[219]. we have seen in the foregoing chapter how the senior members began to withdraw from the dissoluteness of the show. the actions against intruders, which had long become chronic, were pushed on with new vigour. in the hopes apparently of deciding the question once for all the mercers' company instituted a great suit against a mr hart in the year 1823 which was looked upon by all parties as a test case. two years previously a committee had been appointed to search for the charter and other documents which might be serviceable to the company in the great struggle they were apparently then meditating. the opinion of counsel was taken, and it being favourable to the company a full meeting unanimously resolved to act upon it. the first thing to be done was to retrench the expenses. it was decided that no dinner could be held that year (1823), and the annual subscriptions to the infirmary, the lancaster school, and other charitable objects were suspended. the costs of the actions were to be borne by all the combrethren "rateably and in proportion agreeable to the ancient custom and usage of the company." but several resignations and withdrawals took place, which show that there was some doubt, if not as to the exact legality, at any rate as to the expediency of the step which was being taken. but the great majority were resolved to press the matter to the issue. actions against several intruders were consolidated, and that against mr hart came on for trial. important counsel were engaged, and everything was done on both sides to discover the actual state of the law. the result was a verdict entirely in favour of the company. but the assessment of damages at a farthing (while the expenses incurred by the company were between six and seven hundred pounds) showed how strongly public opinion ran in a direction contrary to the mere letter of the law[220]. the defendants however in the present case submitted at once, and the company soon recovered its former financial prosperity. its subscriptions were again paid after a brief interval. but it is noticeable that actions against intruders went on precisely as before. the effect of this great verdict, which was hailed with public dinners and illuminations, was absolutely _nil_. it however stimulated the efforts of the companies in the direction of reform. in consequence of the action the mercers resolved that the enrolment of apprentices (which they confessed had been "criminally neglected") should be better carried out in future, and that a _bona fide_ indenture for seven years should be required in all cases before any claim to the freedom of the company could be admitted. as a tangible result a new book of apprenticeship was commenced, which continued to be carefully and neatly kept to the end. its first entry is dated august 1, 1823, though there are several records of earlier indentures. its last is july 2, 1835. a new book for recording the petitions of foreigners to be admitted was also provided. these were comparatively few in number. they extend from july 31, 1823, to june 2, 1834. [sidenote: _the municipal corporations act._] such was the condition of the companies when the municipal corporations act[221] was passed. no detailed description of this measure, albeit it was "second in importance to the reform act alone[222]," is needed here. as far as the companies were concerned its provisions were simple. it took away from them wholly and entirely all their exclusive privileges of trading. "whereas in divers cities, towns, and boroughs a certain custom hath prevailed, and certain bye-laws have been made, that no person, not being free of a city, town, or borough, or of certain guilds, mysteries, or trading companies within the same or some or one of them, shall keep any shop or place for putting to show or sale any or certain wares or merchandize by way of retail or otherwise, or use any or certain trades, occupations, mysteries, or handicrafts for hire, gain, or sale within the same: be it enacted that, notwithstanding any such custom or bye-law, every person in any borough may keep any shop for the sale of all lawful wares and merchandizes by wholesale or retail, and use every lawful trade, occupation, mystery, and handicraft, for hire, gain, sale or otherwise, within any borough." in these words, which might seem the echo of magna carta[223] through the centuries, liberty of trading was made a fact throughout england. [sidenote: _end of the companies._] it is interesting that we have recorded for us the way in which this sweeping change was received by those most concerned. the mercers had foreseen (july 31, 1835) that it would be advisable to drop all pending actions against foreigners until the result of the act then before parliament should be decided. after it had become law the company met, for the last time under the old conditions, on march 25, 1836, to consider their position and to take steps for the future. it was apparently a stormy meeting. an influential minority proposed to divide the property among the members there and then, and so have done with the company. it was however carried "that the chief rents ... be not disposed of, but reserved to meet the payments to be made to the alms people of st. chad's almshouses[224], and for other purposes." the fire engine, the company's weights and measures etc., were sold. the other companies acted in a similar manner. the saddlers divided at once the funds which remained in the treasurer's hands, and which amounted to £1. 7_s._ 0_d._ for each member[225]. their arbour was however retained, and the rent from it expended on the annual feast on show monday. this arrangement was to continue so long as any of the freemen should be living: on the decease of the last survivor the arbour was to devolve to the town council. lastly, all books, and whatever else remained to the company, were to be deposited with the wardens for the time being. [sidenote: _partial continuation of the companies._] for attempts were made, even in the desperate pass to which the companies seemed to be brought, to prolong the end. a few patriotic members kept up the shadows of the old fraternities. the ancient custom of electing officers was maintained; the mercers' records bring the lists complete down to 1876. the arbours were repaired, mostly at the cost of private individuals, and at spasmodic intervals, while the show still continued to afford opportunities for dissolute revelry to the lowest of the town and neighbourhood. the companies themselves fell back into their original condition of voluntary associations of individuals united for purposes partly benevolent but mainly social, and of which the state took no cognisance. "no one can give much attention to the subject without coming to the conclusion that feasting was one of the essential and most valued features of the companies in their early days[226]:" it became so again in their later. as they had existed long before external circumstances brought them into prominence, so they continued long after they had ceased to influence public affairs, and so they lingered on even after the nation had plainly signified that their existence was not only superfluous but injurious. for their endeavours to restrict trade had been, so far as they had been successful, detrimental to the prosperity of the town, while they had allowed the duty of succouring needy workmen to slip entirely from their hands. the friendly societies which had long taken up this very important part of the functions which the mediæval gilds had performed rose meanwhile into public favour. their excellent work was so apparent that an act of parliament was passed for their encouragement in 1793, and it was even urged that they should be made compulsory. [sidenote: _their property gives them life._] the companies had to all intents and purposes long forgotten their duty in this respect, and they could not take it up again now, though had this course been possible they might have commended themselves to public favour. there was only one means which kept them alive. the secret of their vitality was their possession of property[227], and as that melted away the companies were found dropping out of existence. for being deprived of their real essence they had nothing to recommend them. even the show degenerated into a public scandal, and the companies, like their annual pageant, at length died, one by one, unnoticed and unregretted[228]. [sidenote: _return to organisation._] yet there was arising, even at the time when the old companies were being destroyed, a movement in favour of some return to organisation and regulation. organisation indeed seems to have been a characteristic of the english people at all stages of their history. the saxons had their frith gilds and their monks' gilds; the english of the middle ages had their merchant, religious, social, and craft gilds; in the sixteenth century they had their trade societies, the direct and in many cases the little-altered successors of the craft gilds. then came the larger regulated companies, which also had some features in common with the mediæval gilds, more with the sixteenth century societies. the main differences between the earlier associations and those of a later date lay in the avowed motive of confederacy and in the nature of the influence they exercised. the ostensible motive of the gilds was the general welfare: in the case of the companies it was individual gain. the influence of the gilds may be called a healthy social and moral influence[229]; that of the post-reformation companies in the towns was in the main directed to selfish and political ends[230]. new organisations, adapted to altered conditions of life and new modes of thought, resembling and yet differing from the gilds, were now to arise and take the place of the companies as these had taken the place of the mediæval fraternities. the growth of these however will be beyond the scope of the present essay. it was doubtless necessary that the companies should be pulled down from the lofty heights which they once had occupied. it was requisite that all relics of the detailed system of trade-organisation which the middle ages had handed down to us should be broken up, to make room for a _régime_ more conformable to modern conditions of industry. the anarchic reign of individualism through which trade passed at the beginning of this century was an unavoidable step in economic development. but it was a step attended with infinite loss and inestimable suffering, and it is well that proofs are not wanting of the approaching end of unrestrained competition and anti-social individualism. signs of change are not wanting. experience is continually demonstrating that organisation can accomplish vastly more than individual enterprise; that combination is immeasurably more powerful than competition. it is indeed the tracing out of this reaction in favour of combination for common ends, which lends to the economic history of the last hundred years its chief, perhaps its only, human interest. [sidenote: _socialists and other forms of organisation._] the reaction has manifested itself in various ways. the _socialists_ have always made state-organisation of labour one of the strongest planks of their platform[231]. at the same time englishmen have looked with peculiar jealousy on any attempts by the state to extend its sphere of action. nevertheless a steady development has been witnessed in this direction; the various civil services show a uniform increase with the numbers and requirements of the nation. the board of trade, the local government board, the charity and ecclesiastical commissioners, are further indications of the same tendency towards organisation. [sidenote: _trades unions;_] the gilds cannot, as we have seen, be censured for low aims; moreover their endeavours to reach the level they set themselves were constant and sincere. and the latter half of the nineteenth century has seen a repetition of somewhat similar attempts. [sidenote: _their achievements._] [sidenote: _improvement in status of labour._] the trades union movement[232] is one pregnant with promise for the future[233]. though the unions were formed in the first instances for the purpose of resistance to the masters, it may be hoped that as the need for this grows weaker the analogy which their promoters love to institute between them and the old craft gilds may become more and more real. they have already done much to raise the condition of labour, and as friendly societies they are of the highest value to the workmen[234]. there are signs too that we may even obtain organisations which, with due allowance for altered conditions, may accomplish much of the other good work which gilds performed for mediæval industry. [sidenote: _attempts at regulation of trade._] the unions already aim at ensuring stability of employment through deliberate regulation of trade. by this means they hope to strike a death-blow at that root-evil of our present industrial system, irregularity of employment and uncertainty of wages. [sidenote: _further necessary approximation to gilds._] but they yet fall short of the gilds in two important particulars, and until these deficiencies are made good trades unions can only be considered as insufficient means to a highly desirable end. [sidenote: _appreciation of the common interests of masters and men,_] in the first place there must be no association of men against masters, or masters against men, but union of men with masters for the common good of the craft. fifty years ago it was pointed out[235] that "the recent destruction of the old gilds was a purely negative policy, which required to be followed up by a reconstruction on similar, but modified, lines[236]." but of course nothing was attempted, though it is for their care in seeing that the public was well served that the gilds are chiefly praised to-day. [sidenote: _and of the necessity of ensuring a higher standard of work._] in the second direction much less advance has been made[237]. yet it cannot be expected that a high standard of wages is to be maintained unless a high standard of workmanship is also ensured. improvement in pay can only with justice accompany improvement in skill and application. something of the sentiment and tradition of good work which so strongly characterised the middle ages must be brought back. as yet it is wofully lacking. up to the present the trades unions have made no real attempt to grapple with this evil, though its removal is a necessary preliminary to anything like completeness in our industrial reformation. until they can show their ability to direct trade in this respect in a manner more beneficial to the community than competing capitalists have done during the past, the student will find their analogy to the mediæval gilds incomplete (and that in a point where the latter might be followed with benefit), and the public will consider their usefulness to society unsatisfactory. appendix i non-gildated tradesmen[238]. the ordinary authorities on economic history say little or nothing of the non-gildated tradesmen in the towns, though these formed an important portion of the commercial community. to understand fully the conditions under which trade was carried on in mediæval england the existence of such unfree merchants must be taken into account and their importance appreciated. within the commercial class the enforcement of the gild regulations doubtless depended very largely on circumstances and individual temperament. moreover their reiteration evidences their futility in attaining the objects they had in view. there must have been much greater freedom and elasticity of thought and action during the middle ages than is generally recognised. it must be remembered too that there were important exceptions to the regulations of the gilds. the king's servants, when exercising the royal privileges of purveyance and pre-emption, were naturally unrestricted. in fair-time--and the fairs were a very important feature in mediæval life--there was unrestrained freedom of trade. but more important than these was another. it was quite possible for ungildated tradesmen to purchase temporary or partial exemption from the local restrictions. it will be observed that the royal charters which authorise the gilds and grant exclusive privileges of trading differ somewhat in later years from those of the earliest date. in the earliest grants the words simply allude to the gild only. henry ii.'s charter to lincoln is "sciatis me concessisse civibus meis lincolniæ ... gildam suam mercatoriam." there is no hint of any tradesmen external to the gild. but early in the thirteenth century it becomes evident that such stringent exclusiveness could not be enforced. the charter which henry iii. granted to shrewsbury in 1227 confirmed the gild in the following terms:--"concessimus etiam eisdem burgensibus et heredibus eorum quod habeant gildam mercatoriam cum hansa et aliis consuetudinibus et libertatibus ad gildam illam pertinentibus, et quod nullus qui non sit in gilda ilia mercandisam aliquam faciat in predicto burgo _nisi de voluntate eorundem burgensium_." at about the same time the earl of chester and huntingdon gave a charter to chester forbidding trade in the town "nisi ipsi cives mei cestrie et eorum heredes _vel per eorum gratum_." the phrase "nisi de voluntate eorundem burgensium (or civium)" now became usual in the charters. in those granted by edward i. to the towns which he founded in wales, and which may be looked upon in some measure as model town constitutions, the provision appears in each. thus it may be said that by the end of the thirteenth century it had become customary for the town authorities to grant exemptions from the gild restrictions by their own authority. they practically gave over to the gilds the supervision of trade, but at the same time retained in their own hands the power of admitting traders without obliging them to join the mercantile fraternities. this power of granting exemptions from the restrictions of the gilds seems to have been exercised in various towns in different degrees. in some it extended no further than the permitting "foreigners" to come to casual markets on payment of a toll upon each occasion. in others however it was more largely and generally used, merchants being allowed to be resident and to trade continually and regularly by payment of an annual fine. in the latter case the effect was to create two distinct classes of traders within the town. the burgesses may be divided into two classes, those of them who were gildsmen and those who were not. we now see that the tradesmen dwelling in the towns may similarly be divided into two classes, (i) those who were free of the town or of one of the gilds (or free both of the town and one of its gilds), and (ii) those who were neither burgesses nor gildsmen. thus another has been added to the classes into which the inhabitants of towns are usually divided. mention of these _unfree_ tradesmen is found in the records of many towns in england and wales: in norwich, winchester, lincoln, leicester, andover, yarmouth, canterbury, henley-on-thames, malmesbury, bury s. edmunds, totnes, wigan, chester, shrewsbury, worcester, clun, brecknock, neath, bishops' castle, and others. the designation of these unfree tradesmen varies. at andover they were known as _custumarii_ (in opposition to the _hansarii_--the full members of the gild). at canterbury a similar body appears under the name of _intrants_. in scotland and the north of england they were called _stallingers_. the most usual name for them is however _censer_, _chencer_, _tenser_, and variations of these. _censer_ is apparently the name applied to one who pays a _cense_ or _cess_. in domesday mention is made of _censarius_--"ibi sunt nunc 14 censarii habentes septem carucatas"--and the _censarius_ is described as "qui terram ad censum annuum tenet." the connection of the word is here purely territorial. it becomes more personal later in the history as is seen in the "compotus civitatis wyntoniæ" of the third year of edward i., which contains the following entry:--"et de xliiij_s._ ij_d._ _ob._ de hominibus habitacionibus in civitate wynton' qui non sunt de libertate, qui dicuntur censarii, per idem tempus." here the _censarii_ are evidently considered in their capacity not as possible landowners, but solely as tradesmen. the _census_ has changed from the land rent of domesday to a distinctly personal payment. a somewhat different class from the _censarii_ of winchester are mentioned in the statute 27 henry viii., cap. 7. from the preamble we can form a good idea of the lawlessness and confusion which prevailed on the borders of wales at that period. it is related that in the marches, where thick forests frequently fringe the roads, "certain unreasonable customs and exactions have been of long time unlawfully exacted and used, contrary both to the law of god and man, to the express wrong and great impoverishment of divers of the king's true subjects." the most crying of these evils was that the foresters were accustomed to plunder all passing along the roads (probably under the plea of taking toll), unless they bore "a token delivered to them by the chief foresters ... or else were yearly tributors or chensers." the statute offers no explanation of these terms, but it is most likely they applied to persons paying an annual sum, either to the king or the lords marchers, of the nature of chief rent, especially as cowell, in giving his explanation of the word _chenser_ which will be noticed later, refers to this act of henry viii. in support of his definition. if this be so we see that although the signification of the term had been extended so as to include distinctly personal and commercial tolls, it had, in some districts, also retained its original connection with land. this, censor, censer, gensor, chencer, and other variations, is the most usual form of the word, but occasionally it is found as tenser, tensor, tensur, and tensure. tenser and tensor are used at shrewsbury; at worcester the same word appears as tensure or tensar (_english gilds_, pp. 382, 394). it is difficult to say whether or no _tenser_ is a confusion of _censer_. etymologically the words seem akin, _cense_ being a tax or toll (cess), and _tensare_ meaning to lay under toll or tribute. in the iter of 1164 enquiry is directed to be made "de prisis et tenseriis omnium ballivorum domini regis ... et quare prisæ illæ captæ fuerint, et per quem" etc. another derivation of _tenser_ has been given. owen and blakeway (vol. ii. p. 525) explain it to be a corruption of "tenancier," and apparently intend to imply that these non-gildated traders were considered as holding directly of the king. this view receives some confirmation from cowell's definition of the "censure" and "censers" of cornwall. he says (_a law dictionary: or the interpreter_ etc., ed. 1727) "censure, or _custuma vocata_ censure, (from the latin _census_, which hesychius expounds to be a kind of personal money, paid for every poll) is, in divers manors in _cornwall_ and _devon_, the calling of all resiants therein above the age of sixteen, to swear fealty to the lord, to pay _ij{d} per poll, and j{d} per an._ ever after; as _cert-money_ or _common fine_; and these thus sworn, are called _censers_." "chensers," he says again, "are such as pay tribute or _cense_, chief-rent or quit-rent, for so the french _censier_ signifies." whether or no we receive owen and blakeway's derivation of the word from _tenancier_, even with the support of cowell's "censers" of cornwall, we may press the latter authority into service in showing that the signification of _censer_ and _tenser_, however different the two words might be in origin, became very similar in actual use. the fines which the tensers or censers paid were imposed in the court leet. on the court leet rolls at shrewsbury are entered lists of names and fines headed "nomina eorum qui merchandizant infra villam salopie et suburbia eiusdem, et non burgenses, ergo sunt in misericordia." in the first year of the reign of henry iv. (a.d. 1399) it was ordered that these fines should be levied before the feast of s. katharine (november 25) in each year. the court leet also decided the amount of the fines, but in later times when the select body of magnates had deprived the popular courts of so many of their powers and privileges we find that the apportioning of the tensers' fines had also passed to the close corporation. in 1519 the corporation fixed the tolls at 6_d._ quarterly. the statute 35 henry viii., cap. 18, gave the control of the unfree tradesmen in canterbury to the mayor and aldermen of the city. "no foreigner, not being free of the said city, shall buy or sell any merchandize (saving victual) to another foreigner; nor shall keep any shop nor use any mystery within the said city or the liberties thereof, without the license of the mayor and aldermen, or the major part of them, in writing under their seal." at winchester in 1650 the rates were revised by the mayor and aldermen. the highest limit was fixed at £5, but the fees actually paid were generally sums varying from 6_d._ to 3/4 only (gross, ii. 264). when such a privilege was exercised by a select body it was certain to give rise to abuses. such was found to be the case in early years when the fines were imposed by an authority other than the general assembly of burgesses. in the county court held at lincoln in 1272 it was alleged that the late mayor had taken pledges from the burgesses of grimsby unjustly under the plea of exacting _gildwite_ (as the fine or toll was sometimes called). we learn that at shrewsbury in 1449-50 "this yeare the burgesses and tenssaars ... did varye." what the cause of contention was, or how the dispute was settled, we do not know, but it could hardly arise over anything other than the question concerning the tolls to be paid by the tensers. in some towns special civic officials were appointed to supervise the tensers. at chester the "leave-lookers" were among the most important of the borough officers. the word _leve_ or _leave_ has very much the same signification as the word _cense_ or cess. it is the english "levy," and was the fee or toll for permission to trade. the "leve-lookers" were the officials who exacted the levy or toll which unfree tradesmen were obliged to pay. at chester they were "appointed annually by the mayor for the purpose of collecting the duty of 2_s._ 6_d._ claimed by the corporation to be levied yearly upon all non-freemen who exercise any trade within the liberties of the city." their duties are described as having been "to give licence and compound with any that came either to buy or sell within these liberties contrary to our grants;" "if any did dwell within the city that were not free, if they did ever buy or sell within the liberties, they did likewise compound with the _custos_ and _mercator_ [custos gilde mercatorie] by the year ... the leave-lookers do gather two pence halfpenny upon the pound, of all wares sold by forraigners within the city." (gross, ii. 42.) the same name is found at wigan, where the duty of the "gate-waiters or leave-lookers" was to see that all "foreigners" paid their fines for licence to reside and trade in the town. (sinclair, _wigan_, _passim_.) it is not easy to define the exact status of the tensers. they were certainly considered as an inferior body of burgesses, and might comprise three classes. firstly, those not willing or not able to enter one of the gilds; secondly, traders waiting to be admitted burgesses; thirdly ex-burgesses fallen from the higher state through misfortune. 1. as an inferior class of tradesmen they could only purchase their stock from townsmen (gross, ii. 177); they were incapable of bearing municipal office (_ibid._ ii. 190) and they were liable to be called upon "to be contributorie to alle the comone charges of the citie, whan it falleth" (_ibid._ ii. 190). in the general course of trade but little difference might be perceptible between the tensers and the gildsmen, but attempts to fuse or to confuse the two classes were jealously resented whenever they were discovered. naturally these attempts to minimise the distinctions between gildsmen and non-gildsmen were generally prompted, in later times, by political reasons. only freemen of the town and members of the companies had the privilege of voting in parliamentary elections, and great was the desire to obtain a position on the list of voters. in "an account of the poll for members of parliament for the borough of shrewsbury taken june 29 and 30, 1747" etc., information is supplied concerning certain townsmen who had claimed to be freemen but were rejected on account of having proved themselves to be otherwise by payment, in times past, of the tensers' fines. of john bromhall, baker, we read "it was objected to his vote that he was no burgess, in support of which it was proved that he had paid tensership several years, and that his ffather had paid toll. this tensership is a ffine or acknowledgement commonly paid by persons following trade in the town that are no burgesses, but it being insisted that it was paid through ignorance or mistake, his ffather was called and admitted to prove that he had voted at a former election for this borough, whereupon the mayor admitted his vote, but upon examining a copy of the poll for the year 1676 it appears that all the ffamily of this bromhall were upon a scrutiny rejected as not burgesses." 2. they comprised also among their number many tradesmen waiting to be made burgesses. we learn this distinctly from an ordinance of the corporation of leicester passed in the year 1467, to the effect that every person opening a shop in the town should pay yearly 3/4 _till he enter into the chapman gild_. (nichols, _county of leicester_, i. 376.) there were several causes which would account for the existence of this class. the towns grew increasingly jealous of extending their privileges, as these became valuable. the gildsmen would also desire to learn somewhat of the character of the new-comer before admitting him to full membership with themselves; while on the other hand the latter would wish to see whether the trade of the town were sufficiently prosperous to warrant him settling in the borough permanently. this cause would specially operate in the case of the welsh boroughs which grew up after edward i.'s conquest of the principality. the townsmen however did not approve of the growth of a wealthy class of traders, sharing almost equal commercial privileges with themselves and at the same time not liable to the burdens which were the necessary accompaniment of those privileges. they therefore made it incumbent upon every tenser who evidently was sufficiently satisfied with the trade of the town to make the borough his permanent home, and who had attained to a fair competency, that he should throw in his lot fully and completely with them. he must become in fact a full burgess. this is carefully explained in the _ordinances of the city of worcester_--regulations concerning the trade of the town dating from the reign of edward iv. no. xlvii. says "also, that euery tensure be sett a resonable fyne, aft{r} the discression of the aldermen, and that euery tensure that hath ben w{t}yn the cyte a yere or more dwellynge, and hath sufficiaunt to the valo{r} of xl_s._ or more, be warned to be made citezen, by resonable tyme to hym lymitted, and iff he refuse that, that he shalle yerly pay to the comyn cofre xl_d._, ouer that summe that he shalle yerly pay to the baillies or any other officers; and so yerly to contynue tylle he be made citezen" (_english gilds_, p. 394). 3. there were, thirdly, those who had fallen from a higher state through misfortune or other cause. we read of individuals surrendering their freedom and paying the tenser's fine. "he withdrew and surrendered the freedom to the commonalty, and now pays toll" (gross, ii. 240). as regarded their dealings other than commercial in nature the tendency was to assimilate the tensers and the townsmen. in a grant made to shrewsbury by henry vi. and confirmed by parliament in 1445 the same privileges are extended to the tensers as are possessed by the burgesses in the matter of exemption from the necessity of finding bail in certain cases. similarly at worcester the "tensures" shared with the citizens the right to the assistance of the afferors in cases of wrongful or excessive amercement. (_english gilds_, 394.) nevertheless where commercial privileges were at stake the distinction was rigidly preserved by every means in the possession of the townsmen. the tenser's fine was maintained up to the present century, though not without considerable difficulty. on every hand there were evidences that the companies had outlived their usefulness. friction was everywhere injuring the social machine. competition and individualism had taken the place of custom and co-operation. at winchester there were grievous complaints of intruders who did "use arts, trades, misteries and manual occupations ... without making any agreement or composition for soe doing, contrary to the said antient usage and custome, tending to the utter undoeing of the freemen ... and decay of the same city." everywhere the records of the companies detail little else than summonses to intruders to take up their freedom and notices of actions at law against them for refusing to do so. general demoralisation prevailed, and the existence of a class holding such an equivocal position as that of the unfree tradesmen did not help to mend matters. the case of john bromhall which has been mentioned above illustrates the general looseness which prevailed in all departments of municipal administration. a ludicrous incident which happened at shrewsbury in connection with the tensers in later years is recorded by gough in his _antiquities of myddle_, published in 1834. "this richard muckleston was of a bold and daring spirit, and could not brook an injury offered to him. he commenced a suit against the town of shrewsbury for exacting an imposition on him which they call tentorshipp, and did endeavor to make void their charter, but they gave him his burgess-ship to be quiet." the companies were preserved from repetitions of this strange indignity by the passing of the municipal corporations act of 1835, in consequence of which there could no longer be any invidious distinction between freemen and non-freemen, hansarii and custumarii, gildsmen and tensers. appendix ii. authorities cited. abram, w. a.--memorials of the preston guilds. an account of the poll for members of parliament for the borough of shrewsbury etc. (1747). boeckh, a.--public economy of athens, translated by george cornewall lewis (1842). brentano, lujo--on the history and development of gilds and origin of trade-unions. "britannia languens, or a discourse of trade." (1680.) bryce, j.--the holy roman empire (1887). cowell--a law dictionary: or the interpreter etc. (1727). cunningham, w.--the growth of english industry and commerce (1885). dugdale, w.--antiquities of warwickshire. ebner, dr adalbert--die klösterlichen gebets-verbrüderungen bis zum ausgange des karolingischen zeitalters (1891). eden, sir f. m.--the state of the poor. eyton, w.--antiquities of shropshire. farquhar--the recruiting officer. foucart--les associations réligieuses chez les grecs. foxwell, h. s.--irregularity of employment and fluctuations of prices (1886). froude, j. a.--history of england from the fall of wolsey to the death of elizabeth (12 vols., 1862-70). gneist--geschichte des self-government in england. gneist--das heutige englische verfassungsund verwaltungsrecht. gough--the antiquities of myddle (1834). green, j. r.--a short history of the english people (1886). gross, charles--the gild merchant (1891). grote, george--history of greece (1888). hallam, h.--view of europe during the middle ages. 1 vol. harrison, w.--a description of england (in "elizabethan england," camelot series). hatch, e.--the organisation of the early christian churches (bampton lectures, 1881). howell, g.--conflicts of capital and labour (1890). howell, thomas--the stranger in shrewsbury (1825). kemble, j. m.--the saxons in england. longfellow--the golden legend. macaulay, lord--history of england from the accession of james ii. (1889). may, erskine--constitutional history of england. 3 vols. (1887). merewether and stephens--history of the boroughs. nichols, j.--the history and antiquities of the county of leicester (1795-1815). ordericus vitalis--ecclesiastical history of england and normandy (bohn's series). owen and blakeway--history of shrewsbury. [owen, hugh]--some account of the ancient and present state of shrewsbury (1808). perry, c. g.--a history of the english church (vol. ii.) (1878). pidgeon's memorials of shrewsbury (old ed.). pidgeon's some account of the ancient gilds, trading companies, and the origin of shrewsbury show (1862). poynter, e. j.--ten lectures on art (1880). quarterly review, vol. 159. riley, h. t.--memorials of london ... in the xiii, xiv, and xv centuries. rogers, thorold--six centuries of work and wages (1889). rogers, thorold--the economic interpretation of history (1888). scott, sir walter--marmion. sinclair, d.--the history of wigan. smith, toulmin--english gilds (e. e. t. s.). state papers, domestic (elizabeth). statutes at large (6 vols, 1758). stow, john--a survey of london (carisbrooke library). strype--ecclesiastical memorials (1821). stubbs, w.--constitutional history of england (1883). stubbs, w.--select charters (1884). stubbs, w.--lectures on mediæval history. taylor ms. in library of shrewsbury school (reprinted in s. a. s. vol. iii.). thackeray, w. m.--the four georges. through england on a side saddle in the time of william and mary, being the diary of celia fiennes. transactions of the shropshire archæological society (cited as s. a. s.), vols. i-xi. wordsworth, w.--the happy warrior. index. abbey at shrewsbury, 11, 31, 60 aberystwith, 26 adventurers, merchant, of exeter, 84, 87 aliens not to be taken as apprentices, 64, 82 almshouses, 73, 109, 137 altrincham, 26 amalgamation natural in middle ages, 31 and at all times, 140 anager, 83 andover, 25, 35, 147 anglo-saxons, gilds of, 12 municipal organisation of, 13 apothecary, 28 apprentices, 39, 40, 46, 47, 52, 64, 66, 81 arthur, son of henry vii., 79 arundel, earl of, 27 ashton, thomas, 79, 119 assistants, 5, 41 assize of arms, 11 axbridge, 27, 85 bailiffs, assist gilds, 37 assisted by gilds, 36 supervise gilds, 37, 40 bakers, 28, 59 bala, 27 bamborough, 27 barbers, 28, 45, 58-9, 62, 83-4, 87, 89, 100, 102, 130 bargains, common, 14, 15 barnstaple, 27 bath, 25 beadle, duties of, 42 beaumaris, 27 bedesmen, 63 bedford, 25 benefit clubs, 106, 110 berwick on tweed, 26 beverley, 24, 115 birmingham, 111, 129 bishops' castle, 147 black death, 56 board of trade, 141 bodmin, 25 borough, distinction between merchant gild and, 18, 19 rise and development of, 10 incorporation of, 14 position of merchant gild in, 14, 16 select body in, 19, 105 classes of inhabitants, 147 boroughs, list of, possessing merchant gilds, 24-28 boston, 26 brasier, 53 brecknock, 147 brentano, dr, 7, 9, 104, 105 bricks, revival of use of, 80 bricklayers, 118 bridgenorth, 26 bridgewater, 26 bristol, 25, 87, 111 bromhall, john, 153, 155 builder, 29 builth, 26 burford, 24 burgesses, 3 charters granted to, 14 small share in work of parliament, 49 burgess-ship, qualifications of, 18, 106 not identical with gildship, 18 villains, women, and ecclesiastics excluded from, 18 burnet, 67 bury s. edmund's, 25, 147 butchers, 28, 57, 59 byt-fylling, 13 caerswys, 26 cambridge, 25, 56, 60, 74 camden, 79 canterbury, 12, 24, 147, 148, 150 cappers, 53 cardiff, 27 cardigan, 26, 69 carlisle, 25 carnarvon, 26 carpenters, 28, 59 carrier, 28 castle at shrewsbury, 12 censers or tensers, see shrewsbury chantries, 32, 63, 67, 74, 86, 92 charity commissioners, 141 charles ii., 87 charters did not necessarily create the gilds, 55 to burgesses, 14 chelmicke, mr, 89 chepgauel, 18 n. chester, 25, 92, 119, 146, 147, 151 earl of, 25, 146 chesterfield, 27 chichester, 24 cirencester, 27 civil services, 141 clerk, 28, 43 cloth trade, 78-9 cloth-workers, 29, 117 cloth-merchant, 57 clun, 147 collier, 28 commissioners for plundering gilds, 73 commonwealth, 122 communa, 14, 16 companies, commercial, 6, 47, 86, 88, 98 et seq., 140 compositions, 37-8, 55 n. conflicts between merchant gild and craft gilds, 5, 9, 20, 21 congleton, 26 conquest, norman, 10 continent, commerce with, 10 merchant gilds of, 5, 9, 20, 21 conviviality, 13, 44, 111 conway, 26 cooks, 28, 59 coopers, 28 cordwainers, 35 corn-dealer, 28 cornwall, 149 earl of, 26, 27 corporations, municipal, 14, 16, 105, 109, 127 _corps-de-métier_, 8 corpus christi, gilds and feast, 33, 43, 59, 63, 115, 118 cottoners, 90 county towns, their former importance, 3, 122-3 coventry, 26, 115 craft gilds, earliest mention of, 34 become numerous, 35 favoured by merchant gild, 20, 22, 34, 36 take over work of merchant gild, 20, 35 motives for forming, religious, 31-2 social, 33 commercial, 34 police, 36 incorporated, 38, 55 at shrewsbury, 10 favoured by municipal authorities, 36, 38, 43 composition of, 39 officers, election unrestricted, 40 wardens, 41 assistants, 41 stewards, 42 beadle, 42 searcher, 43, 46, 87 clerk, 43 treasurer, 43 key-keeper, 44 take oath before bailiffs, 37, 40 meetings, 43 importance of, commercial, 45 social, 33, 34, 47-50 constitutional, 48-9 as benefit clubs, 50 specially interesting at present time, 49-51 development of trade introduces abuses, 56-7 policy of reform, 58 demoralisation, 65-7 robbed by government, 67 et seq. effects of this, 75 et seq. reorganisation, 81, 84-97 its effects on gilds, 82 intimate connection of later companies with corporation, 85-6, 99, 105, 120-22 they retain many of old gild characteristics, 87-8, 108-9 though altered conditions make their work difficult, 88, 98 and companies themselves are unsatisfactory, 98-102, 105 they change to capitalist companies, 103-5 from which journeymen are excluded, 106 difficulties of reform, 107-8 contemporaneous opinion of, at end of 18th century, 109-12 destruction of, 136-137 return to organisation partly on gild principles, 141-144 craftsman of middle ages, 49 degraded by reformation, 75 cranmer, 68 criccieth, 26 crispin and crispianus, 118, 125 custumarii, 147 cyveiliog, earl of, 26 davies, thomas, 92 denbigh, 27 derby, 25 despenser, le, 27 devizes, 26 devon, 150 dixon, canon, 71 domesday book, 11, 148 doncaster, 28 dover, 12 drapers, 29, 32-3, 59, 73, 83-4, 90-7, 99, 101, 108-9, 126, 131 dugdale, 116 dunheved or launceston, 26 dunwich, 25 durham, 25 bp of, 26 dutch, 82 dyer, 38 ecclesiastical commissioners, 141 edward the confessor, 12 edward i., 16, 26, 27, 35, 58 his conquest of wales, 2, 146, 154 edward ii., 27 edward iii., 27, 35, 59 edward iv., 28, 38, 42, 58, 59, 62, 65, 79, 82, 117, 154 edward vi.'s confiscation of gild property, 33, 62, 67, 118 elizabeth, 35, 76-79, 81, 84, 86, 117, 118 enclosures, 78 "england the birthplace of gilds", 9 english gilds differ from continental, 5, 9, 20, 21 ethelred, 13 exchequer, 11 exeter, 84 fairs, freedom of trading at, 15, 146 family sometimes considered the germ of the gild, 7 farquhar, 123 faversham, 81 n. feasts of gilds, 13, 44, 111 fee farm or firma burgi, 17, 18, 19, 22 fellmongers, 39 feltmakers, 99 fire-engine supported by gilds, 106, 137 fishmongers, 29, 59 flemings, 82 fletchers, 59 flint, 26 fordwich, 25 "foreigners," forinseci, 19, 20, 98, 110, 147 foresters, 68 four men, 41-2, 104 france, _corps-de-métier_ in, 8 french, 82 french company, 94 freemen of companies, 39, 53, 106 friendly societies, 68, 116, 139, 142 frith bot, 13 frith gilds, 8, 13, 46, 140 frizers, 90 fullers, 35 funerals attended by brethren, 43 fusion of races shown in shrewsbury gild records, 16 gainsborough, 27 garnisher, 28 george iv., 126 german merchants, 82 gildhall, at dover, 12 becomes town hall, 17-18 gild merchant, see merchant gild gilds, see companies, craft gilds, frith gilds, merchant gilds, monks' gilds, religious gilds, yeoman gilds differences between english and foreign, 5, 9, 20, 21 universality of gild feeling, 7 earliest gild statutes, 9 glanvill, 17 gloucester, 25 earl of, 24 glovers, 28, 39, 59, 83, 87, 101, 118 godiva, 116 goldsmith, 28, 53, 109 grammar schools, 74 grampound, 27 grantham, 28 great yarmouth, see yarmouth greeks, gilds among, 7 griffith, earl of cyveiliog, 26 grimsby, 151 grocers, 109, 131 groom, 28 guildford, 26 haberdashers, 100 halls of gilds, see gild hall, 42, 44 hansarii, 147 harlech, 26 harper, 29 harrison, 78, 80 hart, mr, 134 hartlepool, 26 haverfordwest, 25 hawkers, 29 repressed by companies, 130 hedon, 27 helston, 25 henley-on-thames, 27, 147 henry i., 10, 11, 14, 24-34 henry ii., 10, 11, 14, 17, 25, 146 henry iii., 26, 146 henry iv., 2, 27, 59, 65, 150 henry v., 27 henry vi., 28, 57, 58, 59, 62, 66, 155 henry vii., 65, 66, 79 henry viii., 66, 67, 73, 79, 118, 150 henry de lacy, 26 hereford, 25 historical attitude essential in studying history of gilds, 44 hope, 27 hugh le despenser, 27 huntingdon, 35 incorporation, municipal, 14, 16 indentures of apprenticeship, 46, 52, 64 infirmary, 109 inns of court, 119 intrants, 148 intruders and interlopers, 89, 98 cf. also foreigners ipswich, 18, 25 irish not to be taken as apprentices, 82 iron trade, 78 ironmongers, 53, 109 james i., 84, 95 jews, 78 john, 14, 18, 25 journeymen, 39, 40, 106 judge, a member of merchant gild, 29 justices itinerant, 11 justices of the peace, 81 s. katharine, 118, 150 kenfig, 27 kinaston, mr, 95 king's bench, 11 kingsland, 125, 127 kingston-on-thames, 26 kirkham, 27 lampeter, 27 lancaster, 27 launceston, 26 leather-sellers, 39 leech, 29 leet assesses tensers' fines, 150 loses its powers, 105, 150 leicester, 24, 147, 153 leve-lookers or leave-lookers, 151, 152 lever, thomas, 74 lewes, 24 lincoln, 25, 35, 146, 147 liskeard, 26 liverpool, 111 livery, 43, 65 llanfyllin, 27 llantrissaint, 27 lloyd, john, 80 local government board, 141 local history, value of, 10 local life, always varied in england, 1 locksmith, 29 london, 111 its "laws", 13 its anglo-saxon gilds, 12 its craft gilds, 35 its rivalry with provincial towns, 92, 124 its modern pre-eminence, 1, 3, 123 lostwithiel, 26 ludlow, 28, 79, 109 lyme regis, 26 lynn regis, 25, 69 macclesfield, 26 machinery, introduction of, 4 magna carta, 136 malmesbury, 25, 147 marches, of wales, 2, 148 lords of, 2 court of, 2, 89 president of, 2 markets, 13, 15 marlborough, 25 s. mary, chantry in church of, 53 mary, 118 mason, 29 masters, 40-41, 67, 75-76, 103, 105 may day, 5, 98, 120 mayor administers oath of admission, 99 mellent, robert, earl of, 24 mercers, 33, 44, 53, 59, 62, 63, 64, 73, 82, 83, 84, 88, 101, 103, 108, 126, 131, 135, 137, 138, of york, 84 merchant, 14, 29, 38, 48 merchant gilds, the chief difference between town and country, 12, 21 originated to preserve peace, 12, 21 compared with frith gilds, 13, 46 trade regulations follow, 13 earliest mention, 14 royal authorisation, 14, 21 at shrewsbury, 10, 14 effects, 16, 22 chronological list of, 24-8 relations with communa, 10, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 34 with craft gilds, 20 compared with trades unions, 46 functions and privileges of, 14-16, 18-19, 21 duties of gildsmen, 17 comprised majority of householders, 15, 22 all branches of trade, 16, 19, 30 and professions, 18 and women, 18 and ecclesiastics, 18 a rallying point for burgesses, 16, 22 all burgesses are gildsmen, 16 but all gildsmen are not burgesses, 18 efforts towards municipal objects, 20 gild hall becomes town hall, 17 in later years delegates its mercantile functions to craft gilds, 20, 22, 30, 34, 36 who sometimes in aggregate receive name of "merchant gild", 35 subsequent history, 35 s. michael, patron of mercers' company, 53, 63 militia, national, 11 miller, 29, 59 monasteries, 8, 67, 77 monks' gilds, 8 (and n. 2), 59, 140 monks excluded from burgess-ship, 18 montgomery, 26 mornspeche, 43-44 mortmain acts, 55 (n. 2), 61 much wenlock, see wenlock municipal corporations act, 127, 136, 156 municipalities, see boroughs mynde, abbot, 61 neath, 27, 147 nevin, 27 newborough, 27 newcastle-on-tyne, 25 newcastle-under-lyme, 26 newport (salop), 26 newport, 27 newton, 27 norfolk, 69 norman conquest, 10 favours trade, 13, 21 norwich, 147 nottingham, 25 oaths, 39, 53 odd fellows, 68 see friendly societies oswestry, 27, 89 rivalry with shrewsbury, 91-96 overton, 26 oxford, 25, 35 pageants, 4, 33, 42, 63, 113-127 painters, 118 palmer, 29 parchment-makers, 39 paul's cross, 74 peasant revolt, 56 pelterer, 29 pembroke, earl of, 27 petersfield, 24 pewterer, 53 plasterer, 28 plymouth, 28 pointmaker, 39 police regulations aided by gilds, 65, 108 pontefract, 28 poor maintained by craft gilds, 33, 47, 80 portsmouth, 26 potter, 29 pre-emption, gildmen's right of, 15 royal right of, 145 preston, 25 priest, 29 privileges of gildsmen, 15, 17, 63, 64, 65 processions, see pageants puritans, 120, 125 pursers, 39 pwllheli, 27 reading, 26, 35 _recruiting officer_, 123-4 reformation, its shock to industry, 3, 6, 77 to gilds, 67 reform movement fatal to companies, 6, 127 and show, 127 religion and trade, 5, 107, 125 religious gilds, 60 of holy trinity, 59 of s. winifred, 31, 59-62 frequently connected with trade, 60 residence not requisite for membership of merchant gild, 18 restoration, 122, 125 rhuddlan, 27 richard i., 14, 16, 25 richard ii., 27, 65, 82 richard iii., 28 richard, earl of cornwall, 26 robert de belesme, 11 rochester, 26 roger de montgomery, 11, 12 romans, gilds of, 7 rowley's mansion, 80 rubens, 118 ruyton, 27 saddlers, 29, 59, 131 saffron walden, 27 salisbury, 25 _salopian journal_, 109 scarborough, 26 schools maintained by gilds, 33 lancaster, 109 searcher's duties, 43 severn, 123 shearmen, 5, 32, 59, 79, 83, 90, 103, 117, 120-2 shoemakers, 28, 32, 57, 58 shrewsbury, its strong individuality, 1 its geographical position, 2 early growth, 2, 3 in domesday, 11 depressed by conquest, 11 taken by henry ii., 11 later prosperity, 3 streets and houses, 4 its abbey, 11, 31, 60 castle, 12 peculiarities of its gild history, 5, 40-42 its gild-records, 10, 16 gilds, 4, 36, 58-9 gild hall, 17 gild-chantries, 32, 63, 74, 92 religious gilds, 31, 59-62 merchant gild confirmed, 14, 25, 146 incorporation of craft gilds, 58-9 early history of, 55-76 reformation changes, 77-97 obtains monopoly of welsh cloth trade, 3, 91-7 rivalry with coventry, 63 in 16th century, 76, 79 with oswestry in the 17th century, 89-96 with chester, 92 with london, 92, 124 typical of the 17th century, 4, 122-5 influence of machinery upon, 4 later degeneracy of its companies, 98-112, 129-139 shrewsbury show, 113-127, 137 tensers of, (appendix 155) and other towns, 147 etymology, 149-150 their fines, 150 status, 152-154 privileges, 147, 155 relations with burgesses, 155 later history, 155 skinners, 36, 38, 41, 59, 83, 89, 118 skins, seller of, 29 smiths, 84, 88, 118 social gilds, see religious gilds socialists, 141 social life changed by newer conditions, 1, 123 somerset, 67 southampton, 25 stafford, earl of, 27 stallingers, 148 stamford, 28, 115 steen, widow, 101 stephen, 24 stewards, duties of, 42 stow, 120 strype, 74 suffolk, earl of, 95 sunderland, 26 sword cutler, 28 tailors, 28, 32, 36, 38, 41, 44, 57, 59, 83, 84, 88, 89, 101, 117 tanners, 28, 57, 59, 98-9 tavern-keeper, 29 tensers, see shrewsbury teynterer, 29 thegn-right obtained by three voyages, 48 thurstan, abp of york, 24 tolls paid by ungildated merchants, 146-156 totnes, 18 (n. 6), 25, 147 town bargains, common, 15 townhall, 17-18 towns, growth of, in twelfth century, 10, 21 differed little from country, 12, 21 trade their _raison-d'être_, 13 town gild, 13, 31 struggle of classes in continental, 9 but not in english, 9 growth of select body, 19, 105 trade favoured by conquest, 10, 13, 35 expansion of, 20 localisation of, 31 trade unions, 47, 68, 141-144 treasurer of gild, 43 tudor, owen, 79 universities, 119 usury, 33, 78, 80 villain enfranchised by joining merchant gild, 16, 22, 30 vintners, 59 vulcan, 118 wake, john, 27 wales, 2, 30, 146, 154 incorporated with england, 79 cloth trade of, 3, 89-97, 99 prince of, 27, 38, 79 wallingford, 25 walsall, 28 wardens' oath, 39 warenne, reginald de, 24 warwick, 69 warwickshire, 116 weavers, 29, 32, 34, 44, 59, 131 weddings, 43 welshpool, 26 wenlock, 28 weymouth, 28 wigan, 147 leve-lookers or gate-waiters at, 152 william i., 10 wilton, 24 winchester, 16, 25, 35, 85, 147, 148, 155 windsor, 26 s. winifred, 31, 59, 61 witan, 13 wite, 60 women, members of gilds, 39, 40 but not burgesses, 18 woodman, 29 woodstock, 28 wool-comber, 28 wool-buyer, 29 woollen-trade, 78 worcester, 26, 147, 149, 154, 155 working men, of middle ages, 49 degraded by reformation, 75 and by subsequent policy, 106 hopes for their future, 142-144 worsted trade, 78 wrekin, 124 wycombe, 27 yarmouth, 25, 147 yeomen gilds, 5 york, 24, 84, 115 abp thurstan of, 24 cambridge: printed by c. j. clay, m.a. & sons, at the university press. footnotes: [1] i speak of the old edition. i have not had the advantage of using the newer work. [2] that the land did not contain a population adequate for its cultivation is evident from a statute of 1350 which allows the people of the marches of wales (and scotland) to go about in search of work at harvest-time, as they had been accustomed to do aforetime. (_rot. parl._ ii. 234.) _work and wages_, pp. 131-2. [3] cf. thackeray, _the four georges_, p. 320, "decayed provincial capitals, out of which the great wen of london has sucked all the life." [4] macaulay. _history of eng._, vol. i. pp. 165-6. infra, chap. vii. [5] cf. infra, chap. vii. [6] brentano, 44, 52, 54, 58. green, _short hist._, 193. g. howell, _conflicts of capital and labour_, 22-25, 29, 31. [7] cunningham, _growth of industry_, 212. brentano, 90, 95. [8] cf. infra, chap. v. [9] cf. especially chap. vii. [10] _the hist. and development of gilds._ cf. especially note 1. [11] _ibid._ 8. "the objects of the [greek: eranoi] were of the most varied description; ... associations of this kind were very common in the democratic states of greece, and to this class the numberless political and religious societies, corporations, unions for commerce and shipping, belonged." boeckh, _public economy of athens_, p. 243. [12] grote, _hist. of greece_, vol. vi. p. 247, n. 1, where several interesting parallels with the mediæval gilds will be found. (cf. also infra, p. 34, note 2.) [13] e. hatch, bampton lectures, lect. ii. notes. [14] cunningham, p. 124. [15] cf. _die klösterlichen gebets verbrüderungen bis zum ausgange des karolingischen zeitalters_, von dr adalbert ebner. similar spiritual confederations are found in italy in the second quarter of the eighth century, and in the ninth they become common in southern europe. alcuin speaks of them by the terms _pacta caritatis_, _fraternitas_, _familiaritas_. the monks of the allied houses were termed _familiares_. dr brentano (p. 20) says that at later times "conventions like that between the fraternity of london saddlers and the neighbouring canons of st martin-le-grand, by which the saddlers were admitted into brotherhood and partnership of masses, orisons, and other good deeds with the canons, were common." [16] brentano, pages 1, 2. they are printed in kemble's _the saxons in england_, vol. i. appendix d. [17] brentano, 49. [18] gneist, _self government_, vol. i. p. 110; _verwaltungsrecht_, vol. i. p. 139. [19] stubbs, iii. 576, 578. [20] _work and wages_, p. 126. [21] stubbs, i. 452. [22] stubbs, i. 449: _select charters_, 63, cap. 27, 28: 67, cap. iii., viii., 1., etc. [23] _select charters_, 66, 12: 72, 6. [24] stubbs, i. 450. [25] _select charters_, 67, iii., viii., 1. [26] _ibid._ 72, ii. cap. 6. [27] cunningham, 129, stubbs, i. 452, brentano, 42. [28] gross, i. 5; ii. 28, 37. see note 1 to this chapter. [29] cf. note 1 to this chapter. [30] _ibid._ [31] _select charters_, 167 etc.; stubbs, i. 452, and n. 1; eyton's _shropshire_, xi. 134. [32] _quarterly review_, vol. 159. [33] gross, i. 135, 136 and notes; ii. 133, 149. [34] _ibid._ i. 42. [35] cf. note 2 to this chapter. [36] _select charters_, 265. [37] _select charters_, 162, "communam scilicet gildam." [38] gross, i. 83 and note 1. [39] stubbs, i. 451. [40] _select charters_ (helston), 314. [41] gross, i. 54. the rolls of the shrewsbury merchant gild contain a large number of names of "foreigners." for instance in 1209 there were apparently 56 foreigners; in 1252 these had increased to 234. [42] printed in gross, ii. 114-123. [43] _select charters_, 166 (charter of henry ii. to lincoln). [44] gross, ii. 235, and cf. note 2 to this chapter. [45] cf. the "chepgauel" at totnes. gross, ii. 236. [46] gross, i. 57. [47] owen and blakeway, i. 169-174. erskine may, _const. hist._ iii. 276-77. [48] this close relationship of, and actual difference between, the two bodies is very distinctly seen at bristol in the reign of edward iv., when it was the custom for the mayor and council of the town to choose the chief officers of the merchant gild, and to pass ordinances for its regulation. gross, ii. 25. [49] on the early use of coal, cf. _work and wages_, p. 124. [50] the statutes of labourers first gave a recognised position to the "men who neither held land, nor were free burgesses," but who had a dwelling, and paid the rates of some town. cf. cunningham, 193-4. supra, p. 19. [51] _quarterly review_, vol. 159; _economic interpretation_, p. 298. [52] cf. "butchers' row" at shrewsbury, where also the high street was formerly called bakers' row (pidgeon's _handbook_, old ed. p. 37). the street which was afterwards known as single butcher row had been earlier called "shoemakers' row" (phillips, p. 200). [53] cf. the monks' gilds alluded to above, p. 8 and n. 2. [54] "which is now the only fragment left to the incumbent of the church's income before the reformation." s. a. s. x. 223. [55] longfellow expresses this well in _the golden legend_: "the architect built his great heart into these sculptured stones, and with him toiled his children, _and their lives were builded, with his own, into the walls, as offerings unto god_." [56] at worcester a gild school educated 100 scholars. the substitute which the government provided at the reformation was for less than half that number. toulmin smith's collection, p. 203 and note. [57] ordinances of the city of london, framed in 1363. [58] the greeks had private societies called [greek: thiasoi] and [greek: orgeônes] which also presented this feature. cf. foucart, _les associations réligieuses chez les grecs_. [59] brentano, 54. cunningham, 203, n. 2. [60] cf. supra, p. 20. in writing thus i have not forgotten that an opposite view is taken by dr brentano, mr j. r. green, mr geo. howell, and in fact most of the writers who have touched on the subject. [61] gross, i. 114. [62] hartlepool, 1673. "it is ordered at a general guild ... that whosoever ... shall presume to come in and within the liberty of this corporation, to trade or occupye ... to the prejudice of the free trades and companyes within the corporation" etc. gross, ii. 106-7. [63] cunningham, 209, n. 1. [64] tailors' composition, of 1478. [65] the bailiffs are to apprehend on the third day any person coming to the town "suspitiouslie w{th}oute anie lawfull errand or occasion," and to detain him in prison "till he have found suertie of his good bearing or els to avoide the towne." "and if anie man be comitted to their warde by the wardens w{th} the fower men ordeigned to the said wardens to be assistaunt in counsell in good counsell giving of anie crafte w{th}in the said towne and frauncheses that then that person that is so comitted to warde ... be not deliv'ed out of warde by the bailiffs w{th}out assent and agreement of the said wardens and fower men." "item ... that no manne of their crafte journeyman or other be attendant nor at the calling of anie gentleman, nor to noe other person otherwise than the lawe will but onlie to the wardens of their crafte for the good rule of the same and assisting of the bailiffs for keeping of the peace and for good rule of the towne." mercers' composition, 1480-81. the searcher is "to make serche and espye all suche p'sones as frawdelentlye abbrygg, w{t}draw or cownceyle the payments of theyre dewties" (such as toll, murage, etc.). no livery is to be worn except that of the gild or corporation. when the town bell rings the alarum members of the gild are to go to the help of the bailiffs only. [66] tailors' composition, of 1478. cf. _eng. gilds_, pp. 286, 385, 407, 420, etc. [67] there are examples of the town drawing up trading ordinances to which the gildsmen conformed. cf. the usages of winchester and the ordinances of worcester in _eng. gilds_, pp. 349, 370. cf. also pp. 334-337. [68] also before they could hold land in mortmain it would be necessary to obtain a charter. [69] the oath of the freemen of the mercers' company is given as a note to this chapter. [70] cf. appendix. [71] "the position of master and journeyman was not that of capitalist and labourer, so much as that of two fellow-workers, one of whom, from his superior status, was responsible to the town for the conduct of both." cunningham, 211. as showing the position of an apprentice in the 15th century a shrewsbury indenture is given as a note to this chapter. [72] cunningham, 211, n. 1. brentano, 40, 68. [73] "the stock in trade required to set up in business was not great and an apprentice when his term of service was over, became a master almost as a matter of course. journeymen were scarce, or at any rate not plentiful enough to have much influence on trade.... thus capital and labour were united." _quarterly review_, vol. 159, p. 53. [74] brentano, 40. [75] merewether and stephens. [76] for interference with free election on the continent cf. brentano. [77] tailors' composition, 1563. [78] cf. infra, chap. vi. [79] cf. the four auditors to superintend the accounts of the london grocers (1348) and the six members who were chosen "to aid the wardens in the discharge of their duties" (1397), of whom mr george howell says: "_other than these, no notice of the existence of a committee or of assistants, in england, appears earlier than the sixteenth century_." _conflicts of capital and labour_, p. 40. brentano, p. 62. cf. the four assistants in the merchant gild of ipswich, gross, i. 24. [80] the "four men of counsel" of the mercers were, by the composition of 1480-81, chosen by the wardens. [81] mercers' composition, 1480-81. tailors' and skinners', 1563. [82] tailors' composition, 1563. [83] several of these are in the town museum at shrewsbury. [84] a "key-keeper" appears later in the lists of officers. [85] their situation is given in _some account of the ancient and present state of shrewsbury_, published in 1808. [86] barbers' composition (1483 a.d.). [87] _quarterly review_, vol. 159, p. 44. [88] _select charters_, p. 65. [89] _elizabethan england_, p. 9. [90] stubbs, _constitutional history_, vol. iii., p. 607. [91] the writs issued in 1388 order returns of the "charters and letters patent _si quas habent_": cf. toulmin smith, pp. 128, 130. the "compositions" spoken of below were renewals and confirmations of previously enjoyed privileges. they usually assert that the gild has been in existence "a tempore quo non extat memoria." [92] charters were also necessary before lands could be acquired in mortmain. [93] stubbs, ii. p. 504 and note 1. [94] toulmin smith. introduction, p. xxiv. it is from these returns that mr toulmin smith has compiled his collection of ordinances of "english gilds," which however comprise but a small portion of the whole, and throw little or no light on the working of the graft gilds. the documents have not yet been calendared, but they do not appear to contain anything relating to shrewsbury. [95] cunningham, p. 210, 211. [96] green, _short history_, p. 192. [97] cunningham, p. 214. [98] brentano, 75: riley, _memorials_, 539, 565, 568, 570, 571, &c. [99] pidgeon's _gilds of shrewsbury_; _s. a. s._, vol. v. p. 265. [100] _s. a. s._, vol. v. p. 266. [101] pidgeon's _gilds_. [102] merewether and stephens. pidgeon's _gilds_. [103] pidgeon's _gilds_; _s. a. s._ vol. x. p. 33. [104] those of abbotsbury, cambridge and exeter. cf. supra, p. 9. [105] toulmin smith, pp. 29, 42, &c. [106] _ibid._, 7, 8, 11, &c. [107] the little that is known about it is given in owen and blakeway's _history of shrewsbury_, ii. 122. [108] it is printed in _s. a. s._, vol. v. [109] _s. a. s._, vol. viii. [110] bryce, _holy roman empire_, p. 95. [111] "none that is of frenshe, flemmyshe, irysh, dowche, walshe, or any other nacyones borne not beyng at truse w{t} our sov'ayne lorde the kynge, but onlye mere englysshe borne." [112] such articles against the wearing of liveries were common in the gild statutes. cf. toulmin smith, _passim_. [113] except by the nobility to their personal dependents. cf. stubbs, iii. 552. [114] 8 edw. iv. c. 2. [115] 22 hen. viii. c. 4. the entrance fees for apprentices had been raised in some cases to 30/and 40/-. they are now reduced to 2/6 entrance fee, and 3/4 fee on taking up freedom. [116] 28 hen. viii. c. 5. [117] 1 edw. vi. cap. 14. [118] _hist. of reformation_, ii. 72. [119] may, 1548; council book ms. in the privy council office. cf. dixon, _hist. of church of eng._ vol. ii. page 462, note. [120] burnet, _hist. of reformation_, iv. 281. [121] cf. gross, i. 162, ii. 14, 170, 279. [122] the statute 14 eliz. c. 14 was enacted "for the assurance of gifts, grants etc. made and to be made to and for the relief of the poor in the hospitals etc." [123] _memorials_, vol. ii. part i. page 100. [124] against this were to be set the "enclosing" and "non-residence" grievances. [125] _elizabethan england_, p. 11. [126] _ibid._, p. 121. [127] _ibid._, p. 117. [128] _elizabethan england_, p. 117. [129] _ibid._ [130] the good work of the gilds is expressly acknowledged in many charters of the time, e.g. the charter granted to faversham (1616) recites that long experience had shown that the dividing of the government of towns into several companies had worked great good, and was the means of avoiding many inconveniences and preposterous disorders, in respect that the government of every artificer and tradesman being committed to men of gravity, best experienced in the same faculty and mystery, the particular grievances and deceits in every trade might be examined, reformed and ordered. gross, ii. 89. [131] cunningham, p. 181. [132] cf. especially, 3 edw. iv. c. 4; 22 edward iv. c. [133] gross, ii. 1, 2, 55, 89, 186-7, 208, 250. [134] cf. infra, pp. 90-91. the repealing statute (14 eliz. c. 12) avowed that not only had the former act been "supposed for the benefit of the said town" but had also been intended for the "advancing of the corporation of drapers, cottoners and friezers of the said town." [135] gross, ii. 87. [136] gross, ii. 281. cf. also pp. 12, 87, 199, 234, 247-8, 250, 281, 355, 360. [137] _ibid._, 12. [138] _ibid._, 56, 90, 91, 176, 186, 193, 199, 234, 247, 251, 264, 364, 385. [139] merewether and stephens, 1408. [140] cromwell's charter to swansea. gross, ii. 234. [141] cf. the ordinance which appears in the tailors' records, a.d. 1711, april 11. "no combrother shall at any one time have more than two apprentices, one having served 3-1/2 years before the other apprentice be bound, and no apprentice above 17 years taken, and he must be unmarried." [142] it was also directed against the paying of the shearmen in kind. [143] cf. also 18 eliz. cap. 15 (goldsmiths): 8 eliz. cap. 11 (haberdashers). [144] in 1570-1 when sir henry sidney, lord president of wales, passed through shrewsbury. [145] shrewsbury corporation records. [146] state papers, domestic, 1566? (p. 285). [147] state papers, domestic, 1619, oct. ? [148] _ibid._, 1620, jan. ? [149] _ibid._, 1620, jan. ? (there are several petitions against other intruders also, by the countenance of the city of london, "who wish to engross all markets.") [150] _ibid._, 1620, jan. ? [151] _ibid._, 1620, jan. 28. [152] _ibid._, 1620, feb. 21. [153] state papers, domestic, 1622. several petitions from north wales against the proclamation. [154] _ibid._, 1621. petition of drapers of shrewsbury. [155] _ibid._, 1621, may 21. petition of clothiers of north wales: the drapers of shrewsbury are trying to draw all trade to shrewsbury, which will be their ruin. [156] state papers, domestic; oswestry corporation records, printed in _s. a. s._ vol. iii. [157] in 1622 the bailiffs had requested a loan from the mercers towards the establishing of a market for welsh cloth in shrewsbury. [158] the traders of liverpool seem to have been the first to do this, so far as the welsh trade of shrewsbury was concerned. cf. owen's _shrewsbury_. [159] orders of corporation (collected by godolphin edwardes, mayor in 1729). _s. a. s._ vol xi. [160] _ibid._ [161] _ibid._ [162] orders of corporation (1689). [163] _ibid._ (1729). [164] _ibid._ [165] "1619. that the corporation endeavour to compel the wardens of the bakers' company to pay their old annuity of £4. 6_s._ 8_d._ (sic) to the corporation." orders of corporation printed in phillips' _history of shrewsbury_, p. 170. [166] orders of corporation printed in phillips' _history of shrewsbury_. [167] cf. supra, p. 44. [168] glovers' records, 1681. [169] 1782. two members were called upon to show cause why they practise a profession contrary to that they have sworn to follow. [170] _britannia languens_, p. 355. [171] p. 88. [172] consisting however of masters only. [173] macaulay, _history of england_, vol i. p. 204, n. [174] cf. howell, _conflicts of capital and labour_, pp. 16, 62, 79, 103, 109, 472. [175] resolution of saddlers in 1798, voting £50. [176] this sentiment finds expression even in some of the compositions. [177] that is, masters only, not workmen. [178] _the happy warrior_ of wordsworth gives us probably a very true idea of the mediæval conception of the perfect knight. [179] cf. stubbs' _lectures on constitutional history_. [180] cf. supra, p. 47. [181] scott's _marmion_. [182] brentano, p. 21. [183] _ibid._ p. 21. [184] toulmin smith, p. 192. [185] it is a curious coincidence that these two towns which earlier evinced such jealousy towards one another's procession (cf. supra, p. 63) should have maintained it longest. [186] the festivities of the preston gild were held at intervals of twenty years. the last took place in 1882 (cf. abram, _memorials_), but many features place the preston pageants in a different class from that to which those of shrewsbury and coventry belong. [187] i.e. coventry. [188] though there is no doubt that the quarry was used for the performance of plays by other actors. cf. infra, p. 119. [189] phillips (p. 201) gives the titles of two of these plays: "julian the apostate" (at which elizabeth intended to be present, but was misinformed as to the date: when she arrived at coventry tidings reached her that it was already performed) in 1565, and "the passion of christ" in 1567. [190] cf. supra, pp. 5, 36, 85, 92, 98-9. [191] cf. supra, p. 90. [192] stow's _survey_, p. 124. [193] shearmen's records. [194] _ibid._ [195] taylor ms. [196] shearmen's records. [197] _ibid._ [198] (1594.) owen and blakeway, vol. i. p. 396. [199] macaulay, _history of england_, vol. i. p. 164. [200] _through england on a side saddle in the time of william and mary, being the diary of celia fiennes._ [201] from the dedication to _the recruiting officer_. [202] thackeray, _the four georges_, p. 320. [203] perry, _church history_, vol. ii. p. 512. [204] glovers' records, 1781. "item, 1/for carrying the flag to church on show day." [205] saddlers' records, 1810. "treasurer to pay 2 guineas to the apprentices to go to kingsland on show monday, and that they may have the use of the cloth, flag and streamers belonging to the company." [206] saddlers' records, 1812. "that £10 be allowed to dine the company instead of going to kingsland." [207] cf. infra, p. 138. [208] _britannia languens_, p. 355. [209] _the stranger in shrewsbury._ [210] _ibid._ p. 24. [211] _ibid._ on p. 28 they are described as being 16 in number. they appear to have varied considerably in number at different periods. [212] _the stranger in shrewsbury_, p. 24. [213] _ibid._ p. 97. [214] _ibid._ p. 97. [215] in 1637. [216] though a few patriotic members kept the arbours etc. in repair a few years longer. [217] "1822. thomas frances dukes made a combrother free of all expense, for his handsome conduct in giving up the charter." (mercers' records.) [218] cf. _the stranger in shrewsbury_, p. 28. [219] the mercers decide that their dinner shall not cost above £25. [220] a similar case was tried at ludlow in 1831 when the hammer-men obtained a verdict in their favour and a farthing damages. [221] 5 and 6 will. iv. c. 76. [222] _constitutional history of england_, erskine may, vol. iii. p. 285. [223] section 41. omnes mercatores habeant salvum et securum exire de anglia, et venire in angliam, et morari et ire per angliam, tam per terram quam per aquam, ad emendum et venendum, sine omnibus malis toltis. [224] these were finally pulled down in 1859. [225] the mercers followed this example in 1878. [226] _quarterly review_, vol. 159, p. 50. [227] _quarterly review_, vol. 159, p. 56. the drapers' company at shrewsbury still survives to manage s. mary's almshouses. [228] in 1835 there appear to have been companies in at least the following other towns in england, alnwick, bristol, carlisle, chester, coventry, durham, gateshead, haverfordwest, kendal, kingston-on-thames, lichfield, london, ludlow, morpeth, newcastle-on-tyne, oxford, preston, richmond, ruthin, sheffield, southampton, wells, and york. [229] cf. supra, pp. 47-51. [230] cf. supra, pp. 105-106. [231] howell, _conflicts of capital_ etc., p. 494. [232] the story of the rise of trades unions has been told with much detail by mr g. howell in his _conflicts of capital and labour_, and by dr brentano in the last portion of his essay on gilds. [233] it is to be hoped that the development of the "new unionism" will not frustrate this hope. [234] mr john burns has recently been urging on trades unions the advisability of surrendering this feature, so that the funds may the more completely be devoted to militant purposes. [235] by henry lytton bulwer, m.p., in a letter to the handloom weavers when they petitioned for the creation of gilds of trade. [236] foxwell, _irregularity of employment_, p. 72. [237] "there is of late a partial revival of good workmanship in many trades ... but it will require years of toil to recover our lost ground in the markets of the world." g. howell, _conflicts of capital_ etc., p. 225. prof. foxwell points out that "the master cutlers of sheffield have done something in [the] direction lately of exposing and punishing falsification" etc., _irregularity of employment_ etc., p. 80 and note. mr e. j. poynter notices that "the firm of which mr william morris is the head, of which indeed he is the sole member, started the idea, now well understood, that the only possible means of producing work which shall be satisfactory from every side is to return to the principles on which all works of art and art-manufacture were executed, not only in the middle ages, but at all epochs up to the beginning of this century." _ten lectures on art_, p. 274. [238] this paper was written for the shropshire archæological and natural history society, and was printed in substance in their _transactions_, 2nd series, vol. iii., part ii., p. 253. transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. the original text includes greek characters. for this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations. footnote 118 appears on page 67 of the text, but there is no corresponding marker on the page. the original text includes an intentional blank space. this is represented by ________ in this text version. guilds in the middle ages by georges renard edited with an introduction by g. d. h. cole [illustration] london g. bell and sons, ltd. social and economic books. welfare work. employers' experiments for improving working conditions in factories. by e. dorothea proud, b.a., c.b.e. with a foreword by the right hon. david lloyd george, p.c., m.p., prime minister. demy 8vo. second edition. 8s. 6d. net. mr. lloyd george says: "her knowledge of welfare work is unique, and her book bids fair to become the standard work on the subject. i warmly commend it to employers, to lady superintendents, and to all those members of the general public who care for the welfare of the workers in our factories." women in modern industry. by b. l. hutchins. with a chapter on the 1906 wage census by j. j. mallon. 4s. 6d. net. 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"this book is, within its range, the most complete study of our recent foreign policy that we have seen ... it is an admirable piece of work, and in its synthesis of ideas original."--_manchester guardian._ * * * * * _the three latest publications of the ratan tata foundation._ casual labour at the docks. by h. a. mess, b.a. crown 8vo. 2s. net. the homeworker and her outlook. a descriptive study of tailoresses and boxmakers. by v. de vesselitsky. with an introduction by r. h. tawney. crown 8vo. 2s. net. expenditure and waste. a study in war-time. by v. de vesselitsky. crown 8vo. 8d. net. london: g. bell and sons, ltd. guilds in the middle ages by georges renard translated by dorothy terry and edited with an introduction by g. d. h. cole [illustration] london g. bell and sons, ltd. 1918 preface this short book is the first part of a larger work by m. georges renard, the well-known french economic writer. the second part of the original deals with the modern trade union movement, and the part here reproduced is complete in itself. g. d. h. cole. _october 1918._ contents page introduction. by g. d. h. cole ix chapter i origin and geographical distribution 1 chapter ii the organization of the guilds 6 1. various types.--2. the simple guild and the complex guild.--3. the half-democratic guild.--4. the apprentice.--5. the _compagnon_.--6. women in the guilds.--7. the capitalistic guild. chapter iii the administration of the guilds 27 chapter iv the aims and methods of the guilds 32 1. economic aim.--2. social and moral aim; the fraternity.--3. political aim. classification of the guilds; their internal disputes. chapter v the merits and defects of the guild system 68 chapter vi external causes of decay 73 1. change in economic conditions. the extension of the markets and large-scale production; division of producers into classes; _compagnonnage_.--2. change in intellectual conditions. the renaissance. the reformation.--3. change in political conditions. the central authority is driven to interfere: (_a_) through political interest; (_b_) through fiscal interest; (_c_) through public interest. chapter vii internal causes of decay 107 1. division at the heart of the guilds: (_a_) separation of the members; (_b_) subjection of inferiors to superiors.--2. division between the craft guilds.--3. vexatious regulations. chapter viii the death of the guilds 116 1. their suppression in the different countries of europe. they become the victims of: (_a_) "great" commerce and "great" industry; (_b_) the law of the reduction of effort; (_c_) science; (_d_) fashion; (_e_) new economic theories.--2. action against them in england, france, and other european countries.--3. survivals, and attempts to restore the guilds. author's bibliography 137 editor's bibliography 140 introduction to the english edition it is a curious gap in our economic literature that no simple introductory study of mediaeval guilds has yet been published in england. the subject is, of course, dealt with in passing in every text-book of economic history, and there have been several admirable studies of particular aspects of mediaeval guild organization, particularly of the period of its decay; but no one has yet attempted to write a short account of the system as a whole, such as might serve as a text-book for those who desire to get a general knowledge of the industrial system of the middle ages. this is all the more remarkable, because to an increasing extent in recent years men's thoughts have turned back to the mediaeval guilds in their search for solutions of present-day industrial problems. nor is this tendency entirely new, though it has recently assumed a new form. the earlier trade unions often sought to establish their direct descent from the guilds of the middle ages: one of the most ambitious projects of the owenite period in british trade unionism was the "builders' guild" of 1834; and, a generation later, william morris, and to a less extent john ruskin, constantly strove to carry men's minds back to the industrial order which passed away with the first beginnings of modern capitalism. moreover, in our own times, an even more determined attempt is being made to apply the lessons of the middle ages to modern industrial problems. mr. a. j. penty's _the restoration of the guild system_, published in 1907, began this movement, which was then taken up and transformed into the constructive theory of national guilds, first by mr. a. r. orage and mr. s. g. hobson in the _new age_, and later by the writers and speakers of the national guilds league. a substantial literature, all of which assumes at least a general acquaintance with mediaeval conditions, has grown up around this movement; but so far no national guildsman has attempted to write the history of the mediaeval guilds, or even to explain at all clearly their relation to the system which he sets out to advocate. until this very necessary work is executed, the present translation of m. renard's study of mediaeval guilds should fill a useful place. indeed, in some ways, m. renard has the advantage. he is not a national guildsman, but a moderate french socialist of the political school, and he therefore presents the history of the guilds without a preconceived bias in their favour. it is no small part of the value of m. renard's study that he brings out the defects of the mediaeval system quite as clearly as its merits. it must be clearly stated at the outset that the value which a study of mediaeval guilds possesses for the modern world is not based on any historical continuity. the value lies rather in the very discontinuity of economic history, in the sharp break which modern industrialism has made with the past. historians of labour combination have often pointed out that the trade unions of the modern world are not in any sense descended from the guilds of the middle ages, and have no direct or genealogical connection with them. this is true, and the connection which has sometimes been assumed has been shown to be quite imaginary. but it does not follow that, because there is no historical connection, there is not a spiritual connection, a common motive present in both forms of association. this connection, indeed, is now beginning to be widely understood. as the trade union movement develops in power and intelligence, it inevitably stretches out its hands towards the control of industry. the trade union, no doubt, begins as a mere bargaining body, "a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving their conditions of employment"; but it cannot grow to its full stature without becoming far more than this, without claiming for itself and its members the right to control production. at first this claim may be almost unconscious; but out of it grows a conscious theory of trade union purpose. the syndicalist movement, native to france, but spreading the influence of its ideas over the whole industrialized world, the industrial unionist movement, the american equivalent of syndicalism, and our own doctrine of national guilds, or guild socialism, are all conscious attempts to build a policy upon the half-conscious tendencies of trade union action. in all these the claim is made in varying forms that the workers themselves shall control in the common interest the industries in which they are engaged. in one of these theories at least there is a conscious retrospection to the middle ages. national guildsmen are seeking to formulate for modern industrial society a principle of industrial self-government analogous to that which was embodied in the mediaeval guilds. they do not idealize the middle ages; but they realize that the old guild system did embody a great and valuable principle which the modern world has forgotten. they are not setting out to restore the middle ages; but they are setting out to find a democratic form of industrial autonomy which will spring from the principle which inspired the economic system of mediaeval europe. mediaeval guilds assumed many different forms under the varying circumstances of their origin--in holland and italy, france and england, scotland and germany. but, underlying all their different manifestations, a fundamental identity of principle can be found; for, in all, the direct control of industry was in the hands of the associated producers. the relations of the guilds to other forms of association differed widely from time to time and from place to place. in some cases the guilds dominated and almost constituted the state or the municipal authority; in others, the power of the state and the municipality were freely exercised to keep them under control. but, whatever their exact relationship to other social powers, their essential character persisted. it was an axiom of mediaeval industry that direct management and control should be in the hands of the producers under a system of regulation in the common interest. with these general observations in mind, we can now proceed to look more closely at the actual form which mediaeval organization assumed, particularly in this country. m. renard naturally has the continental, and especially the french, examples mainly in mind. we must therefore in this introduction dwell particularly upon the conditions which prevailed in mediaeval england. it was in the middle ages that, for the first time, both the english national state and english industry assumed definite shapes and forms of organization, and entered into more or less defined and constant relationships. concerning their organization, and, still more, concerning the actual, and substantial relations between them, there are many points of obscurity which may never be cleared up; but, apart from special obscurities, the main structure of mediaeval economic life is clearly known. just as, in the manorial system, agriculture assumed a clear and definite relationship to the feudal state, so, with the rise of town life and the beginnings of an industrial system, the mediaeval guilds found a defined sphere and function in the structure of society and a defined relation to the mediaeval state. it is always necessary, in considering the economic life of the middle ages, to bear in mind the relatively tiny place which industry occupied in society. england, and indeed every country, was predominantly agricultural; and england differed from the more advanced continental countries in that she was long an exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactured goods. this is the main reason why the mediaeval guild system never reached, in this country, anything like the power or dimensions to which it attained in flanders, in italy, and in parts of germany. but, even if english guilds were less perfect specimens, they nevertheless illustrated essentially the same tendencies; and the economic structure of mediaeval england was essentially the same as that which prevailed throughout civilized europe. it is indeed a structure which, at one period or another, has existed over practically the whole of the civilized world. industry was carried on under a system of enterprise at once public and private, associative and individual. the unit of production was the workshop of the individual master-craftsman; but the craftsman held his position as a master only by virtue of full membership in his craft guild. he was not free to adopt any methods of production or any scale of production he might choose; he was subjected to an elaborate regulation of both the quantity and the quality of his products, of the price which he should charge to the consumer, and of his relations to his journeymen and apprentices. he worked within a clearly defined code of rules which had the object at once of safeguarding the independence, equality and prosperity of the craftsmen, of keeping broad the highway of promotion from apprentice to journeyman and from journeyman to master, and also of preserving the integrity and well-being of the craft by guarding the consumer against exploitation and shoddy goods. the guild was thus internally a self-regulating unit laying down the conditions under which production was to be carried on, and occupying a recognized status in the community based on the performance of certain communal functions. it was not, however, wholly independent or self-contained; it had intimate relations with other guilds, with the municipal authority of the town in which it was situated, and, in increasing measure, with the national state within whose area it lay. there is about these relations, with which we are here primarily concerned, a considerably greater obscurity than about the main structure of industrial organization. in particular, one of the most obscure chapters in english industrial history is that which deals with the relation between the craft guilds of which we have been speaking and the municipal authorities. in the great days of the guild system the industrial market was almost entirely local. long-distance or overseas trade existed only in a few commodities, and, in this country, these were almost entirely raw materials or easily portable luxuries. england was, as we have seen, an agricultural country, and the nascent industry of the towns existed only to supply a limited range of commodities within a restricted local market. while these conditions remained in being, organization developed in each town separately, and industry came hardly at all into touch with the national state. then, gradually, the market widened and the demand for manufactured commodities increased. as this happened, industry began to overflow the boundaries set to it by the purely local guild organization. foreign trade, and to a less extent internal exchange, increased in variety and amount; and a distinct class of traders, separated from the craftsmen-producers, grew steadily in power and prominence. new industries, moreover, and rival methods of industrial organization began to grow up outside the towns and to challenge the supremacy of the guilds; while, in the guilds themselves, the system of regulation began to break down, and inequality of wealth and social consideration among the guildsmen destroyed the democratic basis of the earlier guild organization. these developments coincided in time with a big growth in the power and organization of the national state, a growth based largely on the imposition of a common justice and the establishment of a common security. this made possible, while the parallel economic developments made necessary, a national economic policy; and the state, beginning with the woollen industry, then after agriculture of by far the greatest national and international importance, began to develop a policy of economic intervention. the state had intervened in agriculture after the black death; even earlier it had begun its long series of interventions in connection with the woollen industry; in 1381 the first navigation act was passed; and during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries complicated codes of industrial regulation by the state became the rule and practice of english statecraft. we have then to distinguish already two periods in which the state assumed differing relations to mediaeval industrial organization. in the earlier days of the guild system industry was local in character, and the guilds came into relations primarily with the municipal authority, and only occasionally with the state, even when the guild charter was obtained directly from the crown. in the second period, when the guild system was already at the beginning of its long period of disintegration, the state was developing a comprehensive economic policy which covered every aspect of industrial organization. let us look rather more closely at the first of these two periods, the period of the rise and predominance of guild organization; and let us repeat our question as to the relations which existed between the guilds and the state or municipal authority. the first form of guild organization in this country was undoubtedly that of the "guild merchant," a general organization including both trading and manufacturing elements, and deriving special privileges for its trade by virtue of a charter secured directly from the crown. here, then, is our first clear relation. the guild merchant derived, if not its organization, at any rate its privileges and authority, from the direct grant of the state. in practice the principal power thus acquired was the right to trade throughout the kingdom. the relations of the guild merchant to the municipal authorities are far more obscure. it used to be maintained that they were identical; but this view has been clearly disproved. we cannot, however, trace many signs of the active intervention of the municipality in the affairs of the guild merchant, though it is clear that the jurisdiction of the city authorities remained, in form at least, unaffected by the creation of a guild merchant. the guilds merchant reached their zenith in the twelfth century. thereafter, as trade and industry grew in extent and complexity, the general organization of all merchants and master-craftsmen in a single body gave way to a system of craft guilds, each representing as a rule a single craft or "mistery." some of these guilds were predominantly guilds of traders, some of producers; while some included both trading and producing elements. by the fourteenth century the guilds merchant had everywhere disappeared, and the craft guilds were in possession of the field. thus came into being the organization of industry generally known as the "mediaeval guild system." what, then, were the relations of these craft guilds to the municipalities and to the state? they arose, we have seen, out of the ashes of the guild merchant. often they were definitely created and fostered by the municipal authorities. the borough claimed the right of regulating production and trade in the interest of its burgesses, the right to uphold quality of product and fair dealing, to punish offenders, and in the last resort to fix both the prices of commodities and the remuneration of journeymen and apprentices. the greater part of these functions was actually exercised by the crafts themselves, which, as we have seen, made their own regulations for the ordering of trade and production; but the city authorities always maintained and asserted a right of intervention in the affairs of the guilds whenever the well-being and good service of the consumer were involved; and this right was frequently exercised in the case of the guilds which organized the supply of food and drink. neither the limits of guild authority nor the limits of municipal intervention were accurately or uniformly defined. in practice the system oscillated from the one side to the other. sometimes the guilds asserted and maintained a comparative immunity from municipal regulation, and sometimes a recalcitrant guild was brought to book by a strong-handed municipal authority. the poise and balance between the parties was in many cases made the more even because both alike often derived their authority from a special charter granted by the crown. indeed, one of the regular resorts of the craft guild, in its battle for independence from outside control, was to get from the crown a definite charter of incorporation, granting to the guild the widest range of powers that it was able to secure. the guild was essentially a local organization, and, in placing it in its relation to the municipal authority, we are describing it in its essential economic character. its relation to the national state, like that of the municipality itself, was far more occasional and incidental, and, apart from one or two broad issues of policy connected mainly with the woollen industry, the interest of the national state in the towns, and therefore in industrial organization, was primarily financial. the protection of the consumer was a very minor motive; the stimulation of urban industry had hardly become a general object of policy systematically pursued; and the granting of charters, whether to town or to guild, was far less a matter of economic policy than an obvious device for raising the wind. charters were always most plentiful when the crown was most in need of money. the period of merely occasional intervention in industry by the state lasted down to the time of elizabeth, when for the first time the state undertook a comprehensive system of industrial regulation. this, however, no longer meant the exclusive dominance of financial considerations, although the need for raising money was always very present to the minds of elizabeth and her ministers. the new policy was primarily political in motive rather than economic, and was directed on the one side to the fostering and development of trade, and on the other to the conservation of the man-power of the nation. the elizabethan statute of artificers, passed in 1563, laid down elaborate provisions both for regulating the flow of labour into various classes of occupations and for prescribing the conditions under which the work was to be carried on. attention in modern times has been mainly directed to the clauses dealing with wages; but the principle of the act was very much wider than any mere regulation of wages. it rested upon the principle of compulsory labour for all who were not in possession of independent means; and its basis was the obligation upon every one who could not show cause to the contrary to labour on the land. at the same time it aimed at protecting the supply of labour for the urban industries, and, still more, at giving to urban industry an advantage against the growing competition of the country-side. in short, it incorporated a general scheme for the redistribution of the national man-power in accordance with a definite conception of national policy. this distribution was accomplished mainly by an elaborate code of regulations for apprenticeship, parts of which lived on right into the nineteenth century. with this regulation of trade and commerce went also a regulation of wages. as in the case of the statute of labourers, the object was primarily that of preventing the labourer from earning more than his customary standard, allowing for variations in the cost of living. the rates of wages which the justices of the peace were ordered to fix were thus primarily _maxima_, and the act contained stringent penalties against those who obtained, or paid, more than these _maxima_. in some cases, however, if rarely, the rates laid down were also _minima_, and employers were fined for paying less. this was, however, clearly exceptional, and a special declaratory act passed under james i., which clearly empowered the justices to fix binding minimum rates, shows that there had been legal doubt about it. in any case the general tendency of the tudor legislation is clear. it aimed at establishing and enforcing by law the existing social structure, at standardizing the relations between the classes, and at putting them all in their places under the direction of the sovereign state. in short, the tudor system represents, in the most complete form possible, the state regulation of private industry. while these measures were being taken by the state, the guild system was in decay. as wealth grew and accumulated, the tendencies towards oligarchy within the guilds and exclusiveness in relation to outsiders grew more and more marked. among the guildsmen wide social distinctions appeared, and the master-craftsman before long found himself, in relation to the rich trader or large-scale manufacturer, very much in the position of a labourer in relation to his employer. the richer guilds, especially those connected with trade, sought by the limitation of entry and the exaction of high entrance fees and dues after entry, to keep the guild "select" and establish an oligarchy in its government. at the same time the growth of new industries which had never come under guild regulation, and the grant by the crown of special privileges to individual monopolists and patentees, contributed to the downfall of the old system. where the guilds did not die, they were transformed into exclusive and privileged companies which in no sense carried on the mediaeval tradition. especially in the later stages of guild development, and with growing intensity as they drew nearer to decay and dissolution, struggles raged in many of the guilds and between guild and guild among the diverse elements of which they had come to be composed. m. renard speaks of struggles in the guilds of florence between the more and less capitalistic and powerful elements, and mr. george unwin, in his book on _industrial organisation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries_, has presented a picture of similar struggles in the guilds of england. these conflicts, however various in some respects, assumed mainly the form of a constant struggle for supremacy between the craftsmen-producers who were typical of the great days of the guilds and the trading or merchant class which was gradually extending its control over production as well as sale. gradually, as capital accumulated in the hands of the traders, the rift between them and the master-craftsmen widened and, gradually too, the master-craftsmen lost their independence and their status as free producers. not only the marketing of the goods which they produced, but also the essential raw materials of their crafts, passed under the control of the traders, either by the operation of economic forces alone, or by the purchase of some valuable concession or monopoly from the crown. moreover, where the actual producer retained his power, he did so by a transformation of function. gradually, he turned into a capitalist trader and lost all unity of interest and outlook with the working craftsman. we need not here follow the guild system through its later stages of decay and dissolution. where the guilds did not die they shrank up as a rule into capitalistic and oligarchical associations. step by step, power within the guild was taken away from the ordinary guild member by the creation of privileged orders, access to which was possible only to "men of substance." this process of oligarchization can be traced very clearly in mr. george unwin's admirable history of the guilds and companies of london. no doubt its coming was more obvious in london than in smaller industrial centres; but the essential features of the change were everywhere substantially the same. the constant attacks on patents and monopolies in the later years of the reign of elizabeth and under the stuarts were, in part, attacks upon the privileges granted to mere courtiers and adventurers; but when monopoly came their way, the undemocratic guilds and livery companies were to the full as forward in abusing their powers as the merest of adventurers who found or bought the royal favour. from the time of the stuarts, at least, the guild system had ceased to count at all as a method of industrial organization. it is doubtful whether, even in their greatest days, the guilds ever included the whole personnel of the trades and industries which they controlled, and it is certain that, as the tendency towards oligarchy became manifest in them, they included a steadily decreasing proportion of those whose work they claimed to regulate. moreover, even of those whom they included, a steadily decreasing number retained any control over their policy. this decay of the guilds, however, is not of primary importance for those who seek to learn lessons from their experience. if we would judge them and learn from them, we must study them as they were in the time of their greatest prosperity and power, before the coming of capitalistic conditions had broken their democracy in pieces and destroyed their essential character. viewed in this aspect, the guild system was essentially a balance, made the easier to maintain because it was not so much a balance of powers between different groups of persons with widely divergent interests as a balance between the same persons grouped in different ways, for the performance of different social functions. the municipal authority was, as a rule, largely dominated by the guilds; and in turn the guilds were largely dominated by the civic spirit. the distinction between producer and consumer was important; but it was not so much a distinction between opposing social classes as between friendly and complementary forms of social organization. in proportion as this was not the case, the balance on which the guild system rested tended to break down; but the occasion of its breakdown was not the irreconcilable opposition of producer and consumer, but the struggles within the guilds themselves between traders and craftsmen, or between exclusive and democratic tendencies. the mediaeval organization of industry, then, was based upon the twin ideas of function and balance. it was an organization designed for an almost self-contained local type of society, and before the coming of national and international economy it broke down and fell to pieces. as a local system of organization it reached its greatest perfection in those countries in which town life was strongest and national government weakest (_e.g._ in the hanse towns of germany; in italy, and in flanders). in this country the towns never possessed the strength or the independence necessary for the perfect development of the guild system; but even so all the essential principles of the guilds were operative. the period since the breakdown of the guilds has been a period of national and international economy. from the point of view of economic organization, it falls into two contrasted halves--a period of state supremacy in which the state assumed the supreme direction of industrial affairs, and a period of state abdication in the nineteenth century, during which there was no collective organization, and economic matters were left to the free play of economic forces working in a _milieu_ of competition. positively, these two periods stand to each other in sharp contrast; negatively there is a point of close resemblance between them. in neither was there any functional organization co-ordinating and expressing the economic life of the nation. in the first period the state regulated industry as a universal and sovereign authority; in the second period nobody at all was allowed to regulate industry, which was supposed to regulate itself by a sort of pre-ordained harmony of economic law. in both periods the purely economic organizations directed to the performance of specific functions which were characteristic of mediaeval organization had disappeared, or at all events had ceased to be the vital regulating authorities in industrial affairs. local functional organizations had ceased to be adequate to the task of control; national functional organizations had not yet come into being, or, at all events, had not yet secured recognition. to-day we stand at the beginning of a new period of economic history. the trade union movement, created mainly as a weapon of defence, is beginning to challenge capitalist control of industry, and to suggest the possibility of a new form of functional organization adapted to the international economy of the modern world. already in russia chaotic but heroic experiments in workers' control are taking place, and, in every country, the minds of the workers are turning to the idea of control over industry as the one escape from the tyranny of capitalism and the wage system. it is, then, of the first importance that, in framing the functional democracy of twentieth-century industry, we should cast back our minds to the functional industrial democracy of the middle ages, in order that we may learn what we can from its successes and its failures, and, even more, gain living inspiration from what is good and enduring in the spirit which inspired the men who lived in it and under it. g. d. h. cole. _november 1918._ chapter i origin and geographical distribution 1. the origin of guilds has been the subject of a great deal of discussion, and two opposing theories have been advanced. according to the first theory they were the persistence of earlier institutions; but what were these institutions? some say that, more particularly in the south of france, they were of roman and byzantine origin, and were derived from those _collegia_ of the poorer classes (_tenuiorum_) which, in the last centuries of the empire, chiefly concerned themselves with the provision of funerals; or, again, from the _scholae_, official and compulsory groups, which, keeping the name of the hall in which their councils assembled, prolonged their existence till about the year 1000. according to others they were, particularly in the north, of german origin, and were derived from associations resembling artificial families, the members of which mingled their blood and exchanged vows to help each other under certain definite circumstances; or again, they may have descended in a straight line from the _ministeriales_, the feudal servitors who, in every royal or feudal domain of any extent, were grouped according to their trade, under the authority of a _panetier_,[1] a _bouteillier_,[2] a head farrier, or a chief herdsman. according to others again, the church, that great international association, had, by the example of its monastic orders and religious brotherhoods, given the laity lessons and examples of which they were not slow to take advantage. according to the opposite theory, each guild was a separate creation, born, as it were, by spontaneous generation, and had no connection with the past. associations (_gildae_), _scholae_, colleges--all had been killed by the hostility of the central power before they had had time to mature fully. they were children of the necessity which compelled the weak to unite for mutual defence in order to remedy the disorders and abuses of which they were the victims. they were the result of the great associative movement, which, working by turns on political and economic lines, first gave birth to the communes, and so created a social environment in which they could live and develop. the craftsmen, drawn together into one street or quarter by a similar trade or occupation, the tanners by the river, or the dockers by the port, acquired for themselves in the towns which had won more or less freedom the right to combine and to make their own regulations.[3] as is nearly always the case, there is a kernel of truth in each of these opposing theories. certainly it is hardly likely that the germs or the wreckage of trade associations, existing in the _collegia_, the _scholae_, the associations, the groups in royal, feudal, or ecclesiastical domains, should have totally disappeared, to reappear almost immediately. why so many deaths followed by so many resurrections? the provision trades in particular do not appear to have ceased to be regulated and organized. if, as fustel de coulanges says, "history is the science of becoming," it must here acknowledge that guilds already existed potentially in society. it may even be added that in certain cases, it was to the interest of count or bishop to encourage their formation; for, as he demanded compulsory payment in kind or in money, it was to his advantage to have a responsible collective body to deal with. it is certain, too, that religious society, with its labouring or weaving monks (the benedictines or umiliate for instance), with its bodies of bridge-building brothers, with its lay brotherhoods, was also tending to encourage the spirit of association. but it is none the less true that these organisms,--if not exactly formless, at any rate incomplete, unstable, with little cohesion, and created with non-commercial aims,--could not, without the influence of favourable surroundings, have transformed themselves into guilds possessing statutes, magistrates, political jurisdiction, and often political rights. it was necessary that they should find, in europe, social conditions in which the need for union, felt by the mass of the population, could act on their weakness and decadence like an invigorating wind, infusing new life into them. it was necessary that they should find in the town[4] which sheltered them, a little independent centre, which would permit the seeds of the future, which they held, to grow and bear fruit unchecked. it may then be concluded that there was, if not a definite persistence of that which had already existed, at least a survival out of the wreckage, or a development of germs, which, thanks to the surrounding conditions, underwent a complete metamorphosis. 2. what we have just said explains both how it was that the guilds were not confined to any small region, and why they were not of equal importance in all the countries in which they were established. they are to be met with in the whole of the christian west, in italy as well as in france, in germany as well as in england. they were introduced simultaneously with town life in the countries of the north. there is sufficient authority for believing that the system which they represent predominated in those days in the three worlds which disputed the coasts and the supremacy of the mediterranean--the roman catholic, the byzantine, and the mohammedan. thus there reigned in the basin of that great inland sea a sort of unity of economic organization. this unity, however, did not exclude variety. the guilds were more alive and more powerful as the towns were more free. consequently it was in flanders, in italy, in the "imperial towns," in the trading ports, wherever, in fact, the central authority was weak or distant, that they received the strongest impetus. they prospered more brilliantly in the italian republics than at rome under the shadow of the holy see. in france, as in england, they had to reckon with a jealous and suspicious royalty which has ever proved a bad neighbour to liberty. the more commercial, the more industrial the town, the more numerous and full of life were the guilds; it was at bruges or at ghent, at florence or at milan, at strasburg or at barcelona, that they attained the height of their greatness; at all points, that is, where trade was already cosmopolitan, and where the woollen industry, which was in those days the most advanced, had the fullest measure of freedom and activity. chapter ii the organization of the guilds 1. it is sometimes imagined that the guilds united all the merchants and all the craftsmen of one region. this is a mistake. at first those who lived in the country, with rare exceptions,[5] did not belong to them: certain towns, lyons for instance, knew nothing of this method of organization, and even in those towns where it was in existence, there were trades which remained outside, and there were also isolated workers who shunned it--home-workers, who voluntarily or involuntarily kept themselves apart from it.[6] guilds, then, were always privileged bodies, an aristocracy of labour. it is also imagined that they were voluntary organizations of a uniform type. there is the classic division into three degrees or grades. just as under the feudal system, a man became successively page, esquire, and knight, and it was necessary, in order to rise from one stage of the hierarchy to the next, to complete a certain time of service and of military education, so in the guild organization, he was first an apprentice for one or more years, then a journeyman (_garã§on_, _valet_, _compagnon_, _serviteur_), working under the orders of others for an indeterminate period, and finally, a master, established on his own account and vested with full rights. just as the knight, after he had given proof of having finished his instruction, had still, before putting on his golden spurs, to go through a religious and symbolic service which included the purifying bath, the oath, and the communion, so the master, after having proved his capabilities by examination or by the production of a piece of fine craftsmanship, took the oath, communicated, and fraternized with his fellows at a solemn banquet. but this quasi-automatic promotion from rank to rank was in fact far from being as regular as has been imagined. it was not unusual for one of the three grades, that of _compagnon_, to be passed over, for the apprentice to rise directly to the rank of master, and for the formalities of admission to be reduced to a minimum for one who had the good luck to be a master's son. from the earliest times mastership tended to become hereditary, as did the life fiefs held by barons and earls. nor on the other hand was it rare for a _compagnon_ to find himself for life at that grade without the possibility of rising higher. moreover, the famous divisions never existed, except in certain trades. the truth is that guild organization, even within the walls of a single town, presented several different types. it might be _simple_, or _complex_; it might be either half democratic or capitalistic in structure. 2. it was simple when it included only one trade, and this was fairly often the case. it was complex when it was composed of several juxtaposed or superimposed groups. in this case it was a federation of craft guilds, each keeping its individual life, its own statutes, and its own officers, but all united in a larger body of which they became members. this was the name which at florence was borne by those lesser bodies of which the whole was composed.[7] the whole was called an _arte_, and just as the _membri_ could themselves be subdivided, so the _arte_ might be defined as a union of unions. the middle age was not an age of equality. usually among the groups united under a central government there was one which predominated, which held fuller corporate rights; the others, regarded as inferiors, only enjoyed a greater or smaller part of such rights. some did not enjoy the privilege of co-operating in the election of the federal magistrates, to whom none the less they owed obedience; others were not allowed to carry the banners, towards which they nevertheless had to contribute their share. take, for example, the _arte dei medici, speziali, e merciai_, at florence, which included, as may be seen, three _membri_--doctors, apothecaries, and haberdashers. this seems a heterogeneous assemblage, but the first two are easily accounted for; and if the connection is less clear between the last and these two, it may be found in the fact that the haberdashers, like the great shops of our own day, sold some of everything, and consequently kept in their shops those foreign drugs and spices of which the _speziali_ were the usual depositaries.[8] the complication is here increased because the _speziali_, among whom dante was enrolled, included as subordinate _membri_ the painters combined with the colour merchants, while the saddlers were coupled with the haberdashers.[9] it will easily be understood how troubled must have been the life of associations formed of such diverse elements. there was in each an endless succession of internal struggles in the attempt to maintain between the varying elements an equilibrium which was necessarily unstable. each "member," according to the number of its adherents, or according to the social standing which it claimed, or which was accorded to it by public opinion, fought for the mastery; but as in the course of years their relative importance was constantly modified, the constitution of the whole body was for ever changing. no fixed principle regulated its ceaseless mobility, or set on a solid basis the organization of its compact but rival groups, of which one or another was ever tempted to imagine itself sacrificed. 3. the guild, when simple, was usually half democratic. being a bourgeois growth developing in feudal surroundings, it rested, like the feudal system itself, on two closely connected principles--hierarchy and equality. it included several superposed grades, while at the same time it assured identical rights to everybody included in any one of those grades. masters, journeymen, and apprentices were ranked one above another, but those of the same grade were equals. inequality could be, theoretically at least, only temporary, since the master had once been a journeyman, the journeyman was a prospective master, and the apprentice in his turn would climb to the top of the ladder. this state of things, however, was only to be met with in the building trades, in "small" industry and "small" commerce--the most numerous it is true, but not the most powerful. there alone was almost realized the idyllic picture of the workman working in the workshop beside his master, sharing his life, eating at his table, his partner in joys and sorrows, joining him in processions and at public ceremonies, until the day when he himself should rise to be a master. 4. it is convenient to begin with the lowest grade and work upwards. the apprentice was, as may be imagined, the object of a somewhat keen solicitude. apprenticeship, in "small" industry, with which it was intimately associated, was the means of maintaining that professional skill on which the guild prided itself. the apprentice was a child whom his parents or guardians wished to be taught a trade as soon as he was ten or twelve years of age, although there was no fixed age limit. a master was found who would take him. every instructor must be a master: he must also be of good life and character, endowed with patience, and approved of by the officers of the guild. if he were recognized as capable of carrying out his duties, the two parties bound themselves by a contract, often verbal, often also made before a notary. this fixed the length of the apprenticeship, which varied greatly in different trades; for it might cover from one to six, eight, ten, or twelve years; sometimes it stipulated for a time of probation--usually a fortnight--during which time either side could cancel the agreement. the apprenticeship was not free of expense, at any rate to begin with, and the child's guardians paid an annual fee in corn, bread, or money. in return, the child received his lodging, food, clothes, washing, and light, and was supervised and taught in the master's house. certain contracts contain special clauses: one states that the family will supply clothes and boots; another, that the apprentice shall receive a fixed salary after a certain time; another provides for the circumstances under which the engagement may be cancelled.[10] the apprentice had certain obligations, which sometimes, in spite of his youth, he solemnly swore to keep (the oath has never been so much used as in the middle ages). he promised to be industrious and obedient, and to work for no other master. the master, on his side, promised to teach him the secrets of his craft, to treat him "well and decently in sickness as in health," and certain contracts add, "provided that the illness does not last longer than a month." naturally these duties carried with them certain rights. the master might correct and beat the apprentice, provided that he did it himself; a contract drawn up with a rope-maker in florence says, "short of drawing blood." it often happened that the apprentice, sick of work or in a fit of ill-temper, ran away from his master; a limit was then fixed for his return, and his place was kept for him during his absence, which sometimes lasted quite a long time (it has been known to continue as long as twenty-six weeks). if he returned within the time limit he was punished but taken back; but if he indulged in three such escapades he was dismissed, his parents had to indemnify the master, and the truant was not allowed to go back to the craft which he had abandoned. however, an enquiry was held to decide whether the master had abused his rights, and the officers of the guild or the civil authority, as the case might be, set at liberty any apprentice who had been unkindly or inhumanly treated. we find a master prosecuted for having beaten and kicked an apprentice to death; a mistress indicted for having forced into evil living a young girl who had been entrusted to her care. in such a case the apprentice was removed from his unworthy master and put into safer hands. sometimes it happened that the master was attacked by a long and serious illness, or that through trouble and poverty he could no longer carry out his agreement. a custom, however, sprang up which threatened to wreck the system. this was the practice of buying for money so many years or months of service, thus establishing a privilege to the detriment of professional knowledge and to the advantage of the well-to-do. a sum of money took the place of actual instruction received, and some apprentices at the end of two years, others only at the end of four, obtained their final certificate which allowed them to aspire to mastership. attention should be called to the fact that there are many statutes which limit the number of apprentices. what was the motive of this limitation? the reason which was usually put foremost--namely, the difficulty one master would have in completing the technical education of many pupils--does not seem to have been always the most serious. perhaps a reduction was insisted on by the journeymen, for it was usually to the interest of the masters to have a great many apprentices, and to keep them for a long time at that stage. they were so many helpers to whom little or nothing was paid, although the work exacted of them nearly equalled that of the journeymen. therefore we must not be astonished if the latter looked unfavourably on these young competitors who lowered the price of labour. the poor apprentices were thus between the devil and the deep sea. they suffered from the jealousy of the journeymen as well as from the greed of the masters, who cut down their allowance of food, and by keeping them unreasonably long prevented them from earning a decent living. the literature of the times,[11] when it deigns to notice them, leaves us to infer that their existence was not a particularly happy one; nevertheless it is only right to add that their lot cannot be compared with that of the wretched children who, in the opening years of the era of machinery, were introduced in large numbers into the great modern industries. 5. the journeymen (also called _valets_, _compagnons_, _serviteurs_, _massips_, _locatifs_, _garã§ons_, etc.) were either future masters or else workmen for life, unable to set up for themselves because they lacked the indispensable "wherewithal," as certain statutes crudely express it. their time of apprenticeship over, they remained with the master with whom they had lived; or else, especially in the building trades, having perfected themselves by travel, they went to the market for disengaged hands[12] and offered their services. they were hired in certain places where the unemployed of all trades assembled. they were required to give proof that they were free of all other engagements, and to present certificates, not only of capability, but of good conduct, signed by their last master. thieves, murderers, and outlaws, and even "dreamers" and slackers, stood no chance of being engaged, while those who, though unmarried, took a woman about with them, or who had contracted debts at the inns, were avoided. they were required to be decently clothed, not only out of consideration for their clients, but also because they had to live and work all day in the master's house. the master, when he was satisfied with the references given, and when he had assured himself that he was not defrauding another master who had more need of hands than himself, could engage the workman. the contract which bound them was often verbal, but there was a certain solemnity attaching to it; for the workman had to swear on the gospels and by the saints that he would work in compliance with the rules of the craft. the engagement was of very varying duration; it might be entered into for a year, a month, a week, or a day. the workman who left before the time agreed upon might be seized, forced to go back to the workshop, and punished by a fine. if the master wished to dismiss the workman before the date arranged, he had first to state his reasons for so doing before a mixed assembly composed of masters and journeymen. a mutual indemnity seems to have been the rule, whether the workman abandoned the work he had begun, or whether the master prematurely dismissed the man he had hired.[13] the journeyman had to work in his master's workshop, and it was exceptional for him to go alone to a client (in which case he was duly authorized by the master), or to finish an urgent piece of work at home. the length of the working day was regulated by the daylight. lighting was in those days so imperfect that night work was forbidden, as nothing fine or highly finished could be done by the dim light of candles. this rule could never be broken except in certain crafts--by the founders, for example, whose work could not be interrupted without serious loss--or by those who worked for the king, the bishop, or the lord.[14] the rest worked from sunrise to sunset, an arrangement which made summer and winter days curiously unequal. some neighbouring clock marked the beginning and end of the day, and a few rests amounting to about an hour and a half broke its length. all this was very indefinite, and disputes were frequent as to the time for entering or leaving the workshop. the paris workmen often complained of being kept too late, and of the danger of being obliged to go home in the dark at the mercy of thieves and footpads. it was necessary for the royal provost to issue a decree before the difficulty was overcome. the workers, however, reaped the benefit of the many holidays which starred the calendar and brought a little brightness into the grey monotony of the days. the sunday holiday was scrupulously observed without interfering with the saturday afternoon, when work stopped earlier, or the religious festivals which often fell on a week day. it has been calculated[15] that the days thus officially kept as holidays amounted to at least thirty, and it may be safely said that work was less continuous then than nowadays. to leave work voluntarily at normal times was strictly forbidden, and the police took up and imprisoned any idlers or vagabonds found wandering in the towns. but even in those days monday was often taken as an unauthorized holiday. certain crafts had their regular dead season:[16] thus at paris among the bucklers (makers of brass buckles) the _valets_ were dismissed during the month of august; but such holidays, probably unpaid, were rare, as was also the arrangement to be found among the weavers at lunã©ville, which limited the amount of work a journeyman might do in a day. for various reasons it is difficult to state precisely what wages were paid; there are very few documents; the price of labour varied very much in different crafts and at different periods; the buying power of money at any given time is a difficult matter to determine;[17] and finally, it was the custom to pay a workman partly with money and partly in kind. it must not be forgotten too that a man ate with his master, a decided economy on the one hand, and on the other a guarantee that he was decently fed. sometimes he received an ell of cloth, a suit of clothes, or a pair of shoes.[18] it has been stated that his wages (which were paid weekly or fortnightly) were, in the thirteenth century, enough for him to live on decently.[19] it has been possible to reconstruct the earnings and expenditure of a fuller at lã©on in the year 1280; the inventory of a soap-maker of bruges of about the same date[20] has been published; it has been estimated that in those days the daily wage of a _compagnon_ at aix-la-chapelle was worth two geese, and his weekly wage a sheep; comparisons have been made, and it has been concluded that a workman earned more in flanders than in paris, more in paris than in the provinces. all this seems likely enough; but i should not dare to generalize from such problematic calculations. i limit myself to stating that historians are almost unanimous in holding that, taking into consideration that less was spent on food, rent, and furniture, and above all on intellectual needs (because both the demands were less and the prices lower), it was easier for a workman's family to make both ends meet in those days than it is now. it is at any rate certain that a journeyman's salary was sometimes guaranteed to him; this is shown by an article of the regulations in force among the tailors of montpellier, dated july 3, 1323: "if a master does one of his workmen a wrong in connection with the wages due to him, that master must be held to give satisfaction to the said workman, according to the judgment of the other masters; and, if he does not do this, no workman may henceforward work with him until he is acquitted; and, in case of non-payment, he must give and hand over to the relief fund of the guild ten 'deniers tournois' [of tours]." on the whole, then, in spite of the varying conditions in the middle ages, it is not too much to say that, materially, the position of the journeyman was at least equal, if not superior, to that of the workman of to-day. it was also better morally. he sometimes assisted in the drawing up and execution of the laws of the community; he was his master's companion in ideas, beliefs, education, tastes. above all, there was the possibility of rising one day to the same social level. certainly one paid and the other was paid, and that alone was enough to set up a barrier between the two. but where "small" industry predominated, there was not as yet a violent and lasting struggle between two diametrically opposed classes. nevertheless, from this time onwards, an ever-increasing strife and discord may be traced. first the privileges accorded to the sons of masters tended to close the guilds and to keep the workmen in the position of wage-earners; this gave rise to serious dissatisfaction. besides this, the masters were not always just, as even their statutes prove. those of the tailors of montpellier, which we have just quoted, decreed that the workshops of every master who had defrauded a workman of his wages should be boycotted. these injustices therefore must have occurred, since trouble was taken to repress them. still more acute was the dissatisfaction in towns where the rudiments of "great" industry existed. strikes broke out, with a spice of violence. in 1280 the cloth-workers of provins rose and killed the mayor;[21] at ypres, at the same date, there was a similar revolt for a similar reason, viz. the attempt to impose on the workmen too long a working day. at chalon, the king of france had to intervene to regulate the hours of labour. already the question of combination was discussed, and the masters did their best to prevent it. at rheims in 1292 a decision by arbitration prohibited alliances whether of _compagnons_ against masters or of masters against _compagnons_. this already displays the spirit of the famous law which was to be voted by the constituent assembly in 1791.[22] in the year 1280, in the _coutume de beauvoisis_ by the jurist beaumanoir, the combination of workmen is clearly defined as an offence[23]--"any alliance against the common profit, when any class of persons pledge themselves, undertake, or covenant not to work at so low a wage as before, and so raise their wages on their own authority, agree not to work for less, and combine to put constraint or threats on the _compagnons_ who will not enter their alliance." the attempt to raise wages by combination was condemned under the pretext that it would make everything dearer, and was punished by the lord by fine and imprisonment. one can see in these and other symptoms signs of the coming storm. the workmen protested against the importation of foreign workers as lowering the price of labour, and made them submit to an entrance fee. they attempted to secure a monopoly of work, just as the masters attempted to secure the monopoly of this or that manufacture. thus amongst the nail-makers of paris[24] it was forbidden to hire a _compagnon_ from elsewhere, as long as one belonging to the district was left in the market. even in the religious brotherhoods, which usually united master and workman at the same altar, a division occurred, and in certain crafts the journeymen formed separate brotherhoods: the working bakers of toulouse, the working shoemakers of paris, set up their brotherhoods in opposition to the corresponding societies of masters, and this shows that the dim consciousness of the possession of distinct interests and rights was waking within them.[25] 6. finally we should take into account the condition of the masters in the lesser guilds where the workshop remained small, intimate, and homely, but these we shall constantly meet with again when we come to study the life and purpose of the guilds, since it was they who made the statutes and administered them. for the present it is enough to mention that women were not excluded from guild life. it would be a mistake to imagine that the woman of the middle ages was confined to her home, and was ignorant of the difficulties of a worker's life. in those days she had an economic independence, such as is hardly to be met with in our own times. in many countries she possessed, for instance, the power to dispose of her property without her husband's permission. it is therefore natural that there should be women's guilds organized and administered like those of the men. they existed in exclusively feminine crafts: fifteen of them were to be found in paris alone towards the end of the thirteenth century, in the dressmaking industry and among the silk-workers and gold-thread workers especially. there were also the mixed crafts--that is, crafts followed both by men and women--which in paris numbered about eighty. in them a master's widow had the right to carry on her husband's workshop after his death. this right was often disputed. thus in 1263 the bakers of pontoise attempted to take it from the women, under the pretext that they were not strong enough to knead the bread with their own hands; their claims, however, were dismissed by an ordinance of the _parlement_. another decree preserved to the widows this right even when they were remarried to a man not of the craft. nevertheless, in many towns, above all in those where entry into a guild conferred political rights and imposed military duties, the women could not become masters. condemned to remain labourers, working at home, and for this reason isolated, they appear to have been paid lower wages than the workmen; and certain documents show them seeking in prostitution a supplement to their meagre wages, or appropriating some of the raw silk entrusted to them to wind and spin. but other documents show them as benefiting by humane measures which the workwomen of to-day might envy them. they were forbidden to work in the craft of "saracen" carpet-making, because of the danger of injuring themselves during pregnancy. this protective legislation dates from the year 1290: for them, as for children, exhausting and killing days of work were yet to come.[26] all the same, one can see the tendency to keep them in an inferior position for life, and, taken along with the strikes and revolts, the first appearances of which amongst weavers, fullers, and cloth-workers we have already mentioned, this clearly shows that, side by side with the half-democratic guilds which were the humblest, there existed others of a very different type. 7. directly we go on to study the great commercial and industrial guilds profound inequalities appear. nor do these disappear with time; whether we deal with the bankers' or with the drapers' guilds, we find that their organization is already founded on the capitalist system. the masters, often grouped together in companies, are great personages, rich tradesmen, influential politicians, separated from those they employ by a deep and permanent gulf. the river merchants of paris, the flemish and german hanse, the english guild merchants, and the _arte di calimala_ in the commune of florence,[27] may be taken as types of the great commercial guilds. they were the first to succeed in making their power felt, and represent, first by right of priority, and later by right of wealth, all that existed in the way of business, the _universitas mercatorum_, and they long retained an uncontested supremacy. not only the whole body, but the heads of the houses or societies dependent on them, had numberless subordinates, destined for the most part to remain subordinates--cashiers, book-keepers, porters, brokers, carriers, agents, messengers. these paid agents--often sent abroad to the depots, branch houses, bonded warehouses, _fondouks_, owned collectively or individually by the wholesale merchants whose servants they were--were always under the strictest regulations. take, for instance, the prohibition to marry which the hanseatic league imposed on the young employees whom it planted like soldiers in the countries with which it traded. nor was the florentine _arte di calimala_, so called after the ill-famed street in which its rich and sombre shops were situated, any more lenient to those of its agents who, especially in france, were set to watch over its interests. the merchants of the calimala--buyers, finishers, and retailers of fine cloth, money-changers too, and great business magnates, constantly acting as mediums of communication between the west and the east--were far from treating their indispensable but untrustworthy subordinates in a spirit of brotherhood. they looked on them with suspicion as inferiors. they complain of their "unbridled malice";[28] they reproach them, and probably not without reason, with making their fortunes at the expense of the firms which paid them. it was decided that in the case of a dispute as to wages, if nothing had been arranged in writing, the master could settle the matter at will without being bound by precedent or by anything he had paid in a similar case. if the employee was unlucky enough to return to florence much richer than he left it, he was at once spied upon, information was lodged against him, and an inquiry instituted by the consuls of the guild; after which he was summoned to appear and made to disgorge and restore his unlawful profits. if he could not explain the origin of his surplus gains, he was treated as a bankrupt, his name and effigy were posted up, and the town authority was appealed to that he might be tortured till a confession of theft or fraud was forced from him; he was then banished from the commune. thus we see exasperated masters dealing severely with dishonest servants: capital ruling labour without tact or consideration. the autocratic and capitalistic character of the great industrial guilds is even more striking.[29] the woollen industry offers the most remarkable instances. the manufacture of cloth (which was the principal article of export to the levantine markets) was the most advanced and the most active industry of the middle ages, with its appliances already half mechanical, supplying distant customers scattered all over the world. it was the prelude to that intensity of production in modern times which is the result of international commerce. the wholesale cloth merchants no longer worked with their own hands; they confined themselves to giving orders and superintending everything; they supplied the initiative; they were the prime movers in the weaving trades which depended on their orders; they regulated the quantity and quality of production; they raised the price of raw material, and the workmen's wages; they often provided the appliances for work; they undertook the sale and distribution of goods, taking the risks, but also the profits. already they were capitalists, fulfilling all the functions of captains of industry. what became, then, of the intimate and cordial relations between masters, journeymen, and apprentices? the guilds began to assume a character unlike anything which could exist among the clothiers or blacksmiths for instance. this new state of affairs suddenly arose at florence in the _arte della lana_. at some periods of its existence this guild had a membership of 20,000 to 30,000, but it was like a pyramid, with a very large base, numerous tiers, and a very small apex. at the summit were the masters, who were recruited entirely from among the rich families and formed a solid alliance for the defence of their own interests. forced to guard against the perils which threatened their business on every hand--the difficulty of transport, a foreign country closed to them by war or by a tariff, the jealousy of rival towns--they tried to recoup themselves by employing cheap labour, and, remembering the maxim "divide and rule," they ranked the workmen they employed in different degrees of dependence and poverty. some classes of workers, such as dyers and retailers, were affiliated to the _arte_ under the name of inferior _membri_. true, they were allowed certain advantages, a shadow of autonomy, and liberty of association, but at the same time they were kept under strict rules and under the vow to obey officers nominated by the masters alone. thus the dyers were not allowed to work on their own account, and were subject to heavy fines if the goods entrusted to them suffered the slightest damage; the rate of wages was fixed, but not the date of payment, which was invariably delayed. on a lower tier came the weavers and the male and female spinners; both classes were isolated home-workers under the system of domestic manufacture, which is highly unfavourable to combination and therefore to the independence of the workers. the weavers, whether proprietors or lessees of their trade, could not set up without the permission of the masters who held the monopoly of wool, on whom they therefore became entirely dependent. they were pieceworkers and had no guaranteed schedule of prices. the spinners lived for the most part in the country, and this country labour served, as usual, to lower the rate of wages in the towns; perhaps this was why the florentine tradesmen favoured the abolition of serfdom, for the reason that its abolition took the peasants from the land and left them free but without property, thus forcing them to hire themselves out, and so creating a reserve army for the needs of industry. the masters invented a curious method of keeping the women weavers in their power. every year the consuls obtained pastoral letters from the bishops of fiesole and florence, which, at christmas, easter, whitsuntide, and all saints, were read in the villages from the bishop's throne. in these letters the careless spinner who wasted the wool which had been entrusted to her was threatened with ecclesiastical censure and even with excommunication if she repeated the offence. an excellent idea indeed, to use the thunderbolts of the church for the benefit of the great manufacturers! on a lower tier again we find the washers, beaters, and carders of wool, the fullers and the soapboilers, who formed the lowest grade of the labouring classes--a true industrial proletariat,--wage-earners already living under the rã©gime of modern manufacture. they were crowded together in large workshops, subjected to a rigorous discipline, compelled to come and go at the sound of the bell, paid at the will of the masters--and always in silver or copper, or in small coin which was often debased,--supervised by foremen, and placed under the authority of an external official who was a sort of industrial magistrate or policeman chosen by the consuls of the _arte_ and empowered to inflict fines, discharges, and punishments, and even imprisonment and torture. in addition, these tools or subjects of the guilds were absolutely forbidden to combine, to act in concert, to assemble together, or even to emigrate. they were the victims of an almost perfect system of slavery. this short sketch shows how necessary it is to discriminate between the various types of guilds. but, however much they differed in their inner characteristics, they shared many points of resemblance which we must now proceed to examine. chapter iii the administration of the guilds the administration of the guilds was everywhere almost uniform. the guild was a voluntary association of men carrying on the same trade or allied trades and pledging themselves by oath to defend their common interests. it demanded of those who, in virtue of their mastership, wished to belong to it, proofs of capability, morality, orthodoxy, political loyalty, and often the regular payment of a contribution. once enrolled, a member could not leave without first publicly announcing his intention to do so, and discharging any debts owing to the guild. he could be expelled for any serious breach of its regulations or of the laws of the state. the association thus constituted was autonomous; it was a moral and legal person; it could possess wealth in lands, houses, money, or bonds; it could contract, bargain, bind itself, appear in court through representatives whom it nominated (syndics, proctors, etc.). it had its guild halls, which were decorated with its coats-of-arms. it had its banner, funds, seal, and archives. it was, then, within the limits of its jurisdiction, self-governing. its constitution was semi-democratic in the sense that the masters of whom it was composed were looked on as possessing equal rights. the legislative power was in the hands of the general assembly, which made, or at least sanctioned, the statutes and the revisions of the rules, and it is remarkable that from one end of europe to the other identical formulae on more than one point are found; the words relating to the subject of prohibition, for example: "let none presume or be so bold as to...."[30] no act of any importance pledging the whole guild could be carried through without the advice and ratification of the assembly. the interests involved were, however, so complex, the business of such daily occurrence, that it would have been impossible to convoke the assembly on every occasion; it therefore became necessary to create an organ of government, an executive, and at the same time a judicial, power--in other words, to nominate officers to act in the name of the guild. the method of nomination varied in every age and region. in most cases the election was made directly by the masters alone, or indirectly by electors whom they nominated; sometimes, but rarely, the inferior _members_ of the complex guilds, journeymen of the simple guilds, took part, and a certain number of those elected belonged to their group. in other cases the nomination depended on the lord or on some one to whom he had delegated his authority; in others it was held by the municipal magistrates, as at toulouse; and in others again the resigning officials nominated their successors or filled vacancies as they occurred. in italy there were complicated systems in imitation of those in use for the communal magistracies. the candidates' names were proposed, and accepted or rejected by acclamation or by secret ballots; those approved were written on tickets which were placed in sealed and padlocked bags. in this way a supply of candidates was provided for several years, and whenever necessary, a child or a priest drew at hazard one of the names for each post.[31] this curious combination of chance and of popular choice was often to be met with in the italian republics. at arras, in the butchers' guild, as many balls of wax as there were masters present were placed in an urn. the words "jã©sus-marie" were inscribed on one of the balls, and the man who drew it became head of the guild. in course of time the right to office was restricted by an age limit, by a longer or shorter period of matriculation, and even by wealth or social standing. thus, among the old-clothes dealers of florence no one who cried his goods in the streets, and among the bakers, no one who carried bread from house to house on his back or on his head, could be elected rector. the officials thus nominated (and none could escape the duty which fell to him) were sometimes quite numerous; the _arte di calimala_ at florence had four consuls, a treasurer or _camã©rier_, a cashier, a syndic, and a proctor, not to mention two notaries and other subordinate officers whom the consuls chose with the assistance of a general council, and of a special council of the guild. the heads or chiefs were called in the south of france, _consuls_, _recteurs_, _bailes_, _surposã©s_, etc.; those in the north were called _gardes_, _eswards_, _jurã©s_, _prud'hommes_, _maã¯eurs de banniã¨res_, etc. in certain texts one comes across "bachelor" masons and carpenters, curious titles given to ex-officers, who, though they had resigned their headship, might still have some official duties.[32] these officers were usually not long in power--sometimes only a few months, and practically never longer than a year; their duties ended with a statement of accounts which carried with it ineligibility to re-election for a certain time. there was always a fear of creating magisterial dynasties which might perpetuate themselves at will, and of encouraging the development of cliques; for these reasons several members of a family or business house were not allowed to sit on the guild committee simultaneously. the reason why so much trouble was taken to divide the responsibilities was because they conferred considerable power and entailed a great deal of absorbing work. the heads of the guilds, by whatever name they were called, took an oath that they would first and foremost see that the rules were carried out--no easy matter. in this respect they had legal powers, and they not only acted as arbiters in the quarrels which arose among the members, but also in the conflicts which in the great merchant guilds might arise in the course of trade even with foreigners: disputes over weights and measures, bankruptcies, frauds, reprisals, etc. they were, in fact, public officials, and their consular tribunals were to become in time the organs of the commune. in the industrial guilds they had to watch over production, inspect the articles of manufacture in the workshops, to make sure that they were in conformity with the prescribed rules. in cases of delinquency they had the right to seize and burn the goods and to inflict a fine on the offenders. in some places it was their duty to protect the apprentices, to examine the candidates for mastership, and to provide the necessary funds for the pious works which were under the control of the community. at florence the _arte di calimala_ had the care of the monastery of san miniato, the baptistery of st. jean, and the hospital of st. eusã¨be; the _arte della lana_ took charge of the building and decoration of the dome. in short, everything which could contribute to the welfare and reputation of the guild was under the jurisdiction of the heads, who, controlled by their colleagues, had thus an extensive sphere of activity. the consuls of the calimala had among their duties the maintenance of roads and hostels, and even the safe conduct of florentine travellers in a district extending as far as the fairs of champagne and st. gilles. but it will be easier to judge of the multiplicity of duties which the guilds demanded of their officers if their aims are more closely studied, and this will best be done by carefully investigating their guiding principles as shown in their statutes. chapter iv the aims and methods of the guilds the guilds appear to have had three essential aims: an _economic_ aim, a _social and moral_ aim, and a _political_ aim. 1. the economic aim comes first in time and importance. the guild was first and foremost a fighting organization for the defence of the trade interests of those who belonged to it. it was jealous both of the welfare and of the honour of the craft--two things intimately connected; for it realized that good reputation is one of the conditions of good business. naturally the first means to suggest itself for the attainment of this double ideal was the regulation of _production_ and _sale_. with regard to production, the guilds prided themselves on giving an official guarantee to the consumer. hence the many articles contained in the statutes in which they boast of their good faith,[33] or make a point of emphasizing the honesty of their trade dealings; hence their complicated regulations, often so misunderstood by historians, for the prevention of bad work; hence the minute instructions prescribing the number of vats into which the florentine dyer was to dip his materials and the quantity and quality of the colouring matters he was to employ; the size of the meshes in the nets which the roman fisherman was to cast into the tiber;[34] the length of the pieces of linen to be woven by the parisian spinner, regulated by that of the tablecloths which covered the table of "good king philip";[35] or the colour and size of the garments which the silk workers of constantinople were to make.[36] in pursuance of the same principle, and on the authority of the statutes--intervention on the part of the public authorities not being required--it was strictly forbidden, under penalty of a fine or of expulsion, to sell damaged meat, bad fish, rotten eggs,[37] or pigs which had been fed by a barber-surgeon who might have fattened them on the blood of sick people.[38] the dyers pledged themselves to use nothing but fast colours, furriers to use only skins which had not been previously used, mattress-makers never to employ wool coming from hospitals. the tailor who spoilt a garment or kept a piece of cloth entrusted to him was made to pay back his client and was punished by his fellows. in maine a butcher might not display a piece of beef on his stall unless two witnesses could testify to having seen the animal brought in alive.[39] if by any chance an article passed through the hands of two craft guilds, delegates from each had to assure themselves that the rules of both had been faithfully observed.[40] the guild prided itself on letting nothing leave its shops but finished products, perfect of their kind; it examined and stamped every article, and further required that it should bear a special trade-mark stating where it was made and its just price.[41] at ypres, towards the end of the thirteenth century, the pieces of cloth thus officially accepted numbered 8000 a year. nor was this all; like caesar's wife, the guild must be above suspicion; not only fraud, but the very appearance of fraud was rigorously excluded, all that might deceive the buyer was forbidden. in florence jewellers might not use sham stones, even if they declared them to be such;[42] in paris it was forbidden to make glass jewels in imitation of real stones, or to put a leaf of metal under an emerald to give it an artificial brilliance;[43] plated and lined goods were not allowed, as they might be mistaken for solid gold or silver.[44] once when a goldsmith, thinking no harm, had made a bowl of this kind, it was decided, after deliberation, to sell it secretly, and he was cautioned never to make another. sale was as carefully watched over as production. not only had the weights and measures to be verified and controlled in conformity with carefully preserved standards, but at florence, for instance, the "iron ruler" of the _calimala_ was the standard for measuring woollen materials, and there were besides minute directions for measuring; there were prescribed methods for measuring a piece of cloth, or for filling a bushel with onions by placing the arms round the edge in order to add to the contents and ensure good measure.[45] in "great" commerce the guild regulated the conditions which made a bargain valid, the duty of paying the _denier ã  dieu_, and the earnest-money, the regular term for completing payment, the rate of discount, and the transparent methods of avoiding the ban placed on interest by the church,[46] the methods of book-keeping, etc. by means of these statutes commerce was eventually to emerge armed with full rights; and as the failure of one member to fulfil his undertakings might compromise all the others, we can understand, even if we cannot approve, the severity of the penalties inflicted on a bankrupt, the posting up of his name and effigy, his expulsion from the guild, his imprisonment and occasionally his banishment from the city. one serious result of this constant and perfectly legitimate effort to assure the success of the guild was that it produced a strong desire to reduce, or if possible do away with, competition. the middle ages did not understand rights except under the form of privileges, and the guild always tended to arrogate to itself the monopoly of the craft which it carried on in a city. it even tried to exclude neighbouring towns from the market, and this was the secret of the desperate struggles which set at enmity bruges and ghent, siena, pisa, and florence, genoa and venice, etc. there is ample proof of this exclusive spirit. at first the guilds tried to keep their processes secret, just as to-day a nation makes a mystery of its new submarine or explosive. woe to him who betrayed the secret which gave the guild its superiority over the others! he was punished by his fellows and by the law. the merchants of the calimala swore not to reveal what was said in the councils of the guild. florence owed part of her wealth to the fact that for long she alone knew the secret of making gold and silver brocade. a tragic example of what it might cost to be indiscreet may be found in a venetian law of 1454: "if a workman carry into another country any art or craft to the detriment of the republic, he will be ordered to return; if he disobeys, his nearest relatives will be imprisoned, in order that the solidarity of the family may persuade him to return; if he persists in his disobedience, secret measures will be taken to have him killed wherever he may be." the following is an example of the jealous care with which the guild tried to prevent any encroachment on its domain: in paris the guild of the bird fanciers attempted, though unsuccessfully, to prevent citizens from setting on eggs canaries which they had caged, as it injured the trade of the guild.[47] it may well be imagined that guilds so jealous of their prerogatives did not make it easy for merchants and workmen coming in from outside. in the free towns (i.e. towns in which industry was organised) a master's licence obtained in a neighbouring, or even a sister, town, was invalid, just as to-day the diploma of doctor of medicine gained in one country does not carry with it the right to practise in another. to open a shop, it was necessary to have served an apprenticeship in that city; or at the very least it was necessary to have learnt the trade for the same number of years demanded of the apprentices in that district. the merchants who came from other parts, not like birds of passage to disappear with the fairs, but to settle down and establish themselves in a country, were subject to the same dues as the citizens, but did not share with them the franchise and might not join their guilds. they formed colonies and attempted to obtain, or even bought permission to reside and trade; but they ran the risk of being arrested or turned out at any moment, especially if they were money-lenders, as, for instance, the lombards, who both in france and england many a time suffered from these intermittent persecutions. outsiders, even though in many cases they had originally come from the district, were hampered by all sorts of restraints and obligations. in short, the town market was usually reserved for the citizens of the town, and the policy of the guilds (with occasional exceptions on the part of the great commercial guilds) was to shut the door to all foreign goods which they could produce themselves. even within the city walls it was their ambition to ruin, or to force into their ranks, free lances of the same trade;[48] and although the word "boycott" was not then invented, the thing itself already existed, and was practised when necessary. this tendency to preserve craft monopoly led to other practices, and we find each guild jealously guarding its particular province against all intruders. doubtless in those days an article was as a rule wholly produced in a single workshop, but it sometimes happened that an article had to pass through the hands of more than one craft guild; this was the case with cloth, leather, and arms. sometimes, again, a craft which began by being simple became so complex that its very development forced it to split up. thus we find in some large towns that the wine merchants were subdivided into five classes: wholesale merchants; _hã´teliers_ (hotel-keepers), who lodged and catered; _cabaretiers_ (inn-keepers), who served food and drink; _taverniers_ (publicans), who served drink only; and _marchands ã  pot_ (bottlers), who retailed wine to be taken away. it followed that the dividing line between guild and guild was often very doubtful, and this situation was continually giving rise to differences, quarrels, and lawsuits, some of which lasted for centuries. in one case[49] we find a currier, who had taken to tanning, forced to choose between the two trades; in another we find goldsmiths forbidden to encroach on the business of money-changing. interminable disputes dragged on between the tailors, who sold new clothes, and the sellers of old clothes,[50] and the courts laboured for years and years to fix the exact moment at which a new suit became an old one! the harness makers quarrelled with the saddlers; the sword polishers with the sword-pommel makers; the bakers with the confectioners; the cooks with the mustard makers; the woollen merchants with the fullers; the leather-dressers with the shamoy-dressers; the dealers in geese with the poulterers, etc, etc.[51] when it was not a question of the right of manufacture, they quarrelled over the best pitches. at paris the money-changers of the pont-au-change complained that the approach to their shop was obstructed by the birdsellers, and tried to force them to settle elsewhere. the wheelwrights established in the rue de la charronnerie (it might have happened yesterday) compelled the clothes-sellers to move about with their hand-barrows, instead of taking up their station in their neighbourhood. these ever-recurring legal disputes were inherent in the guild system and could only disappear with the system itself. lastly, this competition for monopolies made itself felt in the very heart of each guild. it led directly to rigorous limitation of the number of masters. if, in fact, all those who were qualified to receive mastership had been left free to set up, those who first held the privilege would have risked being lost in the crowd of newcomers. this explains why even here they sought to reduce competition to a minimum. only six barbers were allowed in limoges, and when one of them died, his successor was elected after a competitive examination. at angers the head of the guild only created new master butchers every seven years, and even then it was necessary to obtain the consent of the other masters.[52] in certain towns when a family in possession of a craft died out, its house of business and appliances reverted to the guild, which indemnified the heirs.[53] it was an expense, but it meant one competitor the less. is it to be wondered at that mastership in many crafts gradually became hereditary? it was only necessary to push the principle a little further. if we consult the _book of crafts_ drawn up by ã�tienne boileau from 1261 to 1270 by order of louis ix., we read in the statutes of the napery weavers of paris: "no one may be master weaver except the son of a master." thus, from the thirteenth century, guild organization, in the pursuit of its economic ends, closed its ranks and tended to become a narrow oligarchy. 2. the second ruling idea of the guild statutes was the pursuit of moral and social aims; it desired to establish between the masters of which it was composed honest competition--"fair play." it desired to prevent the great from crushing the small, the rich from ruining the poor, and, in order to succeed, it tried to make advantages and charges equal for all. its motto so far was: solidarity. thus, every member was forbidden to buy up raw material for his own profit. if the arrival of fresh fish, hay, wine, wheat, or leather was announced, no one might forestall the others and buy cheaply to sell dearly; all should profit equally by the natural course of events. when a merchant treated with a seller who had come into the town, any of his fellows who happened to come in at the moment when the earnest-money was paid and the striking of hands in ratification of the bargain took place, had the right to claim a share in the transaction and to obtain the goods in question at the same price.[54] sometimes, in order to avoid abuses, anything which had come within the city walls was divided into portions and the distribution made in the presence of an official (_prud'homme_), who saw that the allocation was just, that is to say, in proportion to the needs of each shop or workshop.[55] often the maximum amount which an individual might acquire was strictly laid down. at rome a mattress maker might not buy more than a thousand pounds of horse hair at a time, nor a shoemaker more than twenty skins. to make assurance doubly sure, the community, when it was rich, undertook to do the buying for its members. at florence the _arte della lana_ became the middleman;[56] it bought wholesale the wool, kermes, alum, and oil, which it distributed according to a uniform tariff amongst its members, in proportion to their requirements; it possessed, in its own name, warehouses, shops, wash-houses, and dyeing-houses, which were used by all. thus it came to carry out transactions to the loss of the common funds but to the profit of all the master woollen merchants. it even helped the masters with any available funds by financing them. again, at its own expense, it introduced new manufactures or called in foreign workmen. later on it even possessed its own ships for the transport of the merchandise which it imported or exported. it acted like a trust or cartel. still with a view to equalizing matters between masters, the cornering of the supply of labour was forbidden, and not only was it forbidden to tempt away a rival's workmen by the offer of a higher wage,[57] but as a rule a man might not keep more apprentices than others, and the spirit of equality was carried to such lengths on this point that at paris,[58] among the leather-dressers, no master who employed three or more workmen might refuse to give up one of them to any fellow-master who had in hand a pressing piece of work and only one, or no, _valet_ to execute it. for the same reason a workman might not complete work begun by another man and taken away from him. even the doctors at florence might not undertake the cure of a patient who had already been attended by a colleague; but this rule was repealed, no doubt because it was dangerous to the patients.[59] again, it was forbidden to monopolize customers, to invite into your own shop the people who had stopped before a neighbour's display of goods, to call in the passers-by, or to send a piece of cloth on approbation to a customer's house.[60] all individual advertisement was looked on as tending to the detriment of others. the florentine innkeeper who gave wine or food to a stranger with the object of attracting him to his hostelry was liable to a fine.[61] equally open to punishment was the merchant who obtained possession of another man's shop by offering the landlord a higher rent. any bonus offered to a buyer was considered an unlawful and dishonest bait. the formation within the guild of a separate league for the sale of goods at a rebate was prohibited; prices, conditions of payment, the rate of discount, and the hours of labour in the workshops were the same for all members. privileges and charges had to be the same for all masters, even when the masters were women. one feels that there was a desire to unite the masters into one large family. so true was this that, in commercial matters, not only was father responsible for son, brother for brother, and uncle for nephew, not only were the ties of unity strengthened at regular intervals by guild feasts and banquets, but the ordinary dryness of the statutes was redeemed by rules of real brotherhood. the merchant or craftsman found in his craft guild security in times of trouble, monetary help in times of poverty, and medical assistance in case of illness. at florence the carpenters and masons had their own hospital. when a member died, shops were shut, every one attended his funeral, and masses were said for his soul. in short, within a single guild all rivals were also _confrã¨res_ in the full and beautiful sense which the word has now lost. these rules of brotherhood were often accompanied by moral and religious rules; the guild watched over the good conduct and good name of its members. to be proconsul in the _arte_ of judges and lawyers at florence, a man had to be respected for his piety, his good reputation, his pure life, and proven honesty; he must be faithful and devoted to the holy roman church, sound in body and mind, and born in lawful wedlock. to be received as a master, it was necessary almost everywhere to make a profession of the catholic faith and to take the oath, in order that heretics such as the patarini and albigenses might be kept out. punishments were inflicted on blasphemers, players of games of chance, and even usurers. it was obligatory to stop work on sundays and holidays, and to take part with great pomp and banners unfurled in the feasts of the patron saint of the town and of the guild, not to mention a host of other saints of whom a list was given. the statutes often begin by enumerating the alms it was thought necessary to bestow on certain monasteries and works of mercy and instruction which they promised to support out of their funds.[62] but in these works the guild was often duplicated and supplemented by another institution connected with it--the fraternity. the fraternity appears to have been anterior to the trade association in some places;[63] but whether older or younger it remained closely united with it. born in the shadow of the sanctuary, it had aims that were fundamentally religious and charitable; it was always under the tutelage of a saint, who, on account of some incident taken from his mortal life, became the patron of the corresponding trade. thus, st. ã�loi was patron of the goldsmiths, st. vincent of the vinegrowers, st. fiacre of the gardeners, st. blaise of the masons, st. crespin of the shoemakers, st. julien of the village fiddlers, etc. every fraternity had its appointed church, and, in this church, a chapel dedicated to its heavenly protector, in which candles or lamps were kept burning. it celebrated an annual festival which generally ended with a merry feast or "_frairie_," as it was still called in the days of la fontaine.[64] it joined in processions and shared in the election of church-wardens. apart from the obligatory assistance at certain offices and at the funerals of its members, the fraternity owned a _chest_, that is to say, a fund maintained out of the subscriptions and voluntary donations of the members, as well as by the fines which they incurred. of these funds, collected from various sources, part was given to the poor, to the hospitals, and to the expenses of worship. thus at rennes the fraternity of bakers ordained that in every batch of bread one loaf of fair size should be set apart, called the _tourteau-dieu_, which brings to mind the portion for god or the poor which it was the custom to reserve when the king's cakes were distributed. in alsace, again, in the bakers' fraternities, strict by-laws regulated the treatment of the sick in hospital;[65] they were to be given confession, communion, a clean bed, and with every meal a jug of wine, sufficient bread, a good basin of soup, meat, eggs, or fish; and all were to be treated alike. the chest served also for supplying dowries to the poor girls of the fraternity, which, it will be seen, very much resembled a friendly society, but which, in addition, sometimes took upon itself powers of arbitration, as in the case of the furriers of lyons.[66] sometimes the fraternity coincided with the guild--that is, all the members of the latter, including the journeymen, took part in it; more often, however, it was merely an affiliated institution, and membership was optional. it is curious to find that it was not looked on with much favour by the higher ecclesiastics or by royalty,[67] perhaps because, not having the defence of trade interests as its object, it attempted to dictate in church matters and was concerned with politics; perhaps also because it increased the number of guild banquets which easily degenerated into orgies and brawls. this leads us to the relation between the guilds and the public authorities, and to the part which they played in the political life of the middle ages. 3. the guilds necessarily came into relation with the authorities; they were far from being absolutely sovereign communities, unrelated to the society around them. they retained ties of dependence which reminded them that their emancipation was both recent and incomplete. in the first place it must not be forgotten that in most cases they had extorted or bought from the lord their earliest privileges. according to the feudal conception, the right to work was a concession which he granted or refused at will, and it followed that he kept the prerogatives of supervising and regulating the guilds, whose existence he sanctioned and protected. thus at rouen, towards the end of the twelfth century, henry ii., king of england and duke of normandy, sanctioned an association founded by the tanners, with its customs and monopolies, giving as his reason for so doing, the services which this industry rendered him. at ã�tampes, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, philip augustus of france made known "to all those, present and future, who should read these letters" that he permitted the weavers of linen and napery to organize as they chose, and that he exempted them from all obligations towards himself, except the payment of the market toll, military service, and a fine in case of bloodshed.[68] he did this, he said, for the love of god, which does not mean that he did it gratis; for in return for their freedom these craftsmen had to pay the king twenty pounds a year. the lords maintained their authority everywhere by exacting payment for the favours they granted. they did not, however, always exercise this authority directly, but often delegated it to their great officers. the parisian guilds were under the orders of the provost of paris, who was the king's agent and police magistrate; and traces are to be found of the time when craftsmen, living on the lands of the lord, were grouped under the direction of a headman nominated by him. in those days the nobles, who divided between themselves the domestic services of his house, naturally kept a firm hand over the craftsmen whose duties were allied to their own. thus at troyes, capital of the court of champagne, the bakers were under his _grand panetier_, the tapestry-makers and _huchiers_ under his _grand chambrier_, the saddlers under the constable, etc., and a similar organization was to be found in every feudal court. at rome, every guild had at its head a cardinal, who was its protector and superintendent. but by degrees the power of these dignitaries became nominal, till it was reduced to being merely honorary and lucrative. they contented themselves with the revenues brought in by their duties, and with certain privileges attached to them. they gave or sold the rights which their titles conferred on them, to some private individual, usually to the master of the guild, who, under the name of "master of the craft," really held the power. in the free communities and in the free towns which had become collective lordships the control, superintendence, and direction of the crafts passed, by a natural transference of power, to the municipal magistrates. there were thus (and nothing was more common in the middle ages than these ill-defined situations) rivalries and struggles for jurisdiction between the various authorities, from which the guilds were never free.[69] the very fact that they had to reckon with neighbouring and superior powers taught them to understand that the possession of political rights was a means of defending their economic interests, an indispensable condition in the guidance of public affairs to their own advantage. accordingly, directly the towns freed themselves, the guilds joined forces with all the lower classes against lay or ecclesiastical feudalism. they took an honourable part in the insurrection of the communes, and took their share also in the spoils of victory. they won important liberties, and as each guild formed a sort of little city in which the members discussed, deliberated, and voted, a miniature republic in which they received their civic education, they quickly acquired an important place in the struggle of parties and brought their influence to bear on the government. but the complexity of the situation demands a double distinction. the political influence of the guilds varied according to two main factors, the degree of independence of the towns in which they existed, and the nature of the crafts of which they were composed. with regard to freedom, the towns ranged between two extremes. there were those in which a power external to the burgesses (king, lord, pope, bishop, abbot) remained full of life, active, and capable of making itself respected. such was the case in france, in england, and for a long time in rome. there were others, on the contrary, in which the burgesses almost eliminated every element foreign to their class; in which they absorbed the wealth and jurisdiction of the bishop; in which they subdued the nobles and forced them either to give up interfering or to become plebeians by joining the guilds; in which they created real republics with their own constitution, budget, army, and mint, all the dangers and all the prerogatives of practically complete sovereignty. such was the case in florence, venice, ghent, strasburg, and in the imperial towns, which had nothing to fear from the impotent or distant phantoms who claimed to be the successors to caesar and charlemagne. if they lived under the domination of an energetic and neighbouring power, the guilds only took a secondary place, and this is perhaps the reason why it has been possible for the greater number of french historians to leave them in the background; but they became powers of the first order if they developed in surroundings where their expansion was not interfered with. let us begin by considering them in those places where they were held firmly in check. the authority which weighed on them was exerted in several directions at which we will glance. in the first place, this authority attempted to regulate the conditions of labour, to fix its hours and its price. it forbade work on certain days, though it is true that it consented to many exceptions. at rome, where religious festivals were naturally very numerous, the pope authorized the wine-sellers and innkeepers to serve travellers, though not inhabitants of the town, on such days; the farriers to shoe horses on condition that they did not make new shoes; the barbers to dress wounds but not to shave; the grocers and fruiterers to open their shops without displaying their goods; the butchers to hang their meat, so long as it was covered up; the shopkeepers in general to leave the doors of their shops half open for the sake of ventilation.[70] in other words, trade was allowed _sub rosa_. the intervention of the lord in these matters was so habitual that it caused no surprise. john ii. of france, in his famous ordinance of 1355, proclaimed in 227 articles a maximum tariff for merchants' goods and the wages of the workmen. the statute of labourers in england in 1349 had similar objects. the authorities interfered also in judicial matters. when there was a dispute between two guilds (and this, unfortunately, was of frequent occurrence) the case came under the jurisdiction of the lordly, communal, or royal tribunal; in paris the matter went before the king's provost, and in case of appeal, to the _parlement_. but if the trade was held in fee, _i.e._ if it was under the protection of a master who held it in fee, it was he who settled the difference. thus long wars were waged between barbers and surgeons; at first united in one body, they wished later on to be separated; but the surgeons wanted to keep the monopoly of surgical operations, and against this the barbers protested. now the head of the trade was the king's barber and first _valet de chambre_; and in 1372 he inspired an ordinance, which reserved to the barbers the right to "administer plaisters, unguents, and other medicines suitable and necessary for curing and healing all manner of boils, swellings, abscesses, and open wounds." this, however, did not prevent the quarrel from lasting several centuries longer.[71] there were many other causes which led to lawsuits.[72] the guild might go to law with individuals over the possession of a house or a field, or have difficulties with the tax-collector. often, too, the causes of dispute lay within itself and arose between officers and masters, who claimed to have been unjustly accused of wrong-doing. in all these cases it was invariably the rule to apply to the head of the craft or to the representatives of the competent authority (provost or seneschal). in fiscal matters, the guild had obligations from which it could not escape. in the first place, the right to work, collectively and individually, had to be paid for. the first article of the statutes of the napery-weavers of paris was couched in those terms: "no man may be napery-weaver at paris unless he buys the right from the king." by the application of the same principle the community had to pay a royalty to get its statutes approved, although this did not always exempt a member from having to pay down a sum in advance for permission to open a shop or hang out a sign.[73] usually the _tonlieu_ and the _hauban_ were paid to the lord, though it must be clearly understood that the king and town might take his place; the _tonlieu_, which was paid in money, was a sum levied on the sale of merchandise in proportion to the amount sold; the _hauban_, which was a payment in kind,[74] exempted those who paid it from the other charges falling on the craft; it seems to have been a privilege which could be bought, or at least a sort of mutual contract or exchange between payer and paid. but the lord, apart from what he thus put straight into his coffers, levied other indirect charges on commerce and industry. if he had granted to a guild (the river merchants, for example) the river tolls, he reserved the right of free passage for everything destined for his own use. he kept for himself a certain number of lucrative monopolies.[75] he had, in the fairs and markets which he alone could authorize, the right of first choice and purchase. he demanded payment for his stamp on the weights and measures; he taxed everything which entered or left his territory; he claimed duties on the weight of goods, and on the inspection of goods and of inns. often these rights of lordship were transferred by him to one of his officers, whose services he remunerated in this way. one curious example will suffice.[76] the paris executioner was a great personage in those days; he walked the streets clothed in red and yellow, and was exceedingly busy, for he had to keep the gibbet at mont lanã§on supplied with humanity--and it had room for twenty-four victims; not to mention the pillories, where the minor offenders were exhibited, and the scaffolds on which the worst criminals were executed. to recompense him for his grim services he had been accorded important privileges, amongst others the right of _havage_; that is to say, of every load of grain taken to the corn market he claimed as much as could be held in the hollow of the hand or in a wooden spoon of the same capacity. besides this, he collected a toll on the petit-pont, duties on the sale of fish and watercress, on the hire of the fish stalls surrounding the pillory, and a fine of twopence-halfpenny per head on pigs found straying in the streets. these were by no means all the charges imposed on the guilds. they had further to guarantee certain public services. to the building guilds was assigned the provision of safeguards against fire; to the doctors' and barber-surgeons' guilds, the care of the sick poor and of the hospitals; to all, or nearly all, the assessment of certain taxes, the policing of the streets, and sometimes the defence of the ramparts. in paris, where the nights were as unsafe as they were ill-lit, every guild in turn furnished, according to its importance, a certain number of men to patrol the streets and keep guard, from the ringing of curfew to the break of day, when the sergeant of the chã¢telet sounded the end of the watch. the same custom was to be found in most of the free towns. a few guilds only were exempt from keeping guard, either on account of their finances or because it was considered that they had to render other services. such, for example, were the goldsmiths, archers, haberdashers, judges, doctors, professors, etc. on the other hand, some guilds were under special regulations, _e.g._ the provision guilds. the fear of scarcity, owing to the frequency of bad harvests or war and also to the permanent difficulty of communication and transport, was a perpetual menace to the towns. their policy in this matter was nearly always that of a besieged city. the consequent legislation was, above all, communal, and was inspired by two fundamental principles: first, that on the commune devolved the duty of seeing that the inhabitants were healthy and well fed; secondly, that the commune, when it was short of money, had a convenient resource in the taxation of the necessaries of daily life. thus the commune wanted, above all, an abundance of cheap provisions; it was anxious to avoid food crises which are generally the precursors of riots and even revolutions; and, without theorizing (nobody troubled much about theories in those days) they practised what a historian has called a sort of "municipal socialism."[77] the commune did not confine itself to checking the exportation of cattle or of wheat by strict prohibitions, to encouraging imports by giving bonuses, and forbidding speculations and monopolies under pain of severe punishments; it instituted the public control of grain, owned its own mills and ovens, filled public granaries at harvest time, and emptied them when prices were high; and it did all this with no idea of gain, but in order that the poor should not be condemned to die of hunger when times were bad. sometimes the commune owned fisheries and fish-markets (rome); it often held the monopoly of salt (florence); sometimes it forbade a family to keep more wine in the cellar than was needed, in order that the possibility of using it should not be confined to the rich. it was with this object in view that in the town of pistoria it was decreed that every owner of sheep should supply at least twenty lambs from every hundred sheep, and in the district of florence, that every peasant should plant so many fruit trees to the acre. when the commune did not go so far as to take on itself the supply of actual necessaries, it achieved the same end through the medium of the provision trades. this is why the millers were the objects of endless regulations intended to protect from fraud those who gave them their grain to grind. this is why the bakers were subjected to a municipal tariff, were closely watched, and were sometimes obliged to put up with the competition of outside bakers. this is why the merchants sold vegetables, fruits, oil, and wine at prices fixed by special magistrates. besides this perfectly legitimate endeavour to guarantee the necessaries of life to every one as far as possible, there was the very similar and no less justifiable attempt to guarantee the good quality of provisions exposed for sale. the _talmelier_, or baker, might not offer for sale bread that was badly baked or rat-eaten.[78] provisions for market were submitted to a daily and rigorous examination. the butchers at poitiers had to undergo a physical and moral examination to make sure that they were neither scrofulous, nor scurfy, nor foul of breath, and that they were not under excommunication. there was the curious office of the _langueyeurs de porc_, who had to examine pigs' tongues to see if they showed any signs of measles or leprosy. hygiene, little studied in those days, gave birth to several precautionary measures. indeed, it was necessary to study it when epidemics were abroad, and epidemics were both frequent and deadly. the private slaughter-houses, and still more those of the butchers' guild, were periodically inspected and moved out of the towns into the suburbs. the numerous rules and dues which were imposed on this rich guild, which, with its slaughterers and knackers, formed a formidable and powerful company, appear to have been balanced by considerable privileges. at paris, for instance, the grande boucherie, as it was called, possessed a monopoly extending to the suburbs, by which the masters, reduced to a small number who succeeded one another from father to son, had the sole right of selling or buying live animals or meat, as well as sea and fresh-water fish. the constant relations between the craft guilds and the authorities gave them a place of their own; but, besides this, they led to the creation of guilds of an entirely official character. the guilds of the measurers (_mesureurs_ and _jaugeurs_), who verified the capacity of earthenware jars, barrels, bushels, etc., or of the criers (_crieurs_), who cried in the streets the contents of their jugs--wine for instance--and offered them to the passers-by to taste,[79] were in fact combinations of government officials. these trades were peculiar in this respect, that those who plied them were in receipt of a salary out of their official takings, and that they might not exceed a certain number; and also that they held a monopoly, since every one was obliged to employ them. through them we can pass to the second aspect of the communal or lordly legislation which regulated the provision trades, viz. the fiscal aspect. it was no longer in the interests of the consumer that the commune kept, for instance, the monopoly of salt, buying as cheaply and selling as dearly as possible. it was for its own benefit that it instituted customs, dues, and tolls, levied on food-stuffs, which therefore fell more heavily on the poor than on the rich; their variation was simple--when the poorer classes had their way the dues went down, when the rich were in power they went up. things are just the same nowadays, in spite of the fine phrases with which the fluctuations of commercial policy in great states are disguised. but since, in speaking of guilds, we have been led to speak of social classes, we must now describe their classification in those centres where the system was most fully developed,--that is where guilds, instead of being subjects, were ruling powers. it naturally follows that their relations with the authorities were greatly modified in the towns in which they created, or were themselves, the authorities. such was the case at florence, where, from the year 1293, twenty-one _arti_ or unions of craft guilds nominated the priors and the other supreme magistrates of the city; at strasburg, where, during the fourteenth century, the city council was formed from the delegates of twenty-five _zã¼nfte_, having the same constitution as the arti of florence; at ghent, where at about the time of james van artevelde the three _members_[80] of the state were formed by the weavers, the fullers, and the "small" crafts; at boulogne, siena, bruges, zurich, liã©ge, spire, worms, ulm, mayence, augsburg, cologne, etc.; where within sixty years similar revolutions occurred, putting the power into the hands of the guilds. in those days the guilds were the units for elections, for the militia, and for taxation; they judged their dependents without appeal; they expelled, or reduced to the rank of passive citizens, those who were not inscribed on their registers; they decided questions of taxation, peace, and war, and directed the policy of their town, whose internal and even external history is essentially one with their own. in these little corporate republics, the principal question became that of deciding how the different groups of guilds should apportion the government among themselves. but first, on what principle were the guilds classified? was it according to the vital importance of the needs they existed to supply? this would seem reasonable enough, but apparently it was nothing of the kind, or else the provision trades would have been in the first rank. _primum vivere_, said the old adage, and to live it is necessary to eat and drink, more necessary even than to be housed and clothed, and to trade, and certainly more necessary than to draw up notaries' deeds or go to law. now the crafts which provided for the inner man, for messer gaster, as rabelais calls him (butchers, wine merchants, bakers), were almost everywhere placed in the second or third rank; the only exceptions were the grocer-druggists, and it will be seen why this was so. we must look elsewhere, then, for the reasons which determined the order of social importance assigned to the guilds by public opinion in the middle ages. it appears that this classification was based on three different principles which i will call the _aristocratic_, the _plutocratic_, and the _historical_; that is to say, the status of a profession seems to have depended on whether it was more or less _honourable_, _lucrative_, or _ancient_.[81] the place of honour was reserved for those crafts in which brainwork took precedence over manual work. they were regarded as more honourable evidently because, in the dualistic conception which governed christian societies, spirit was placed above matter, the intellectual above the animal part of man. it was for this reason that the professions which demanded brainwork alone were called from that time onwards "liberal," as opposed to manual labour which was called "servile," an expression which the catholic church has piously preserved to our own days. at montpellier, boulogne, paris, wherever universities existed (which were themselves in effect "guilds" or corporations, and were practically federations of advanced schools, as we see from their jurisdiction, their statutes, their dependents and agents whom they possessed in the parchment makers and booksellers, and in the title of rector which their head shared with many other officers elected by the guilds), the professors of the different faculties enjoyed very extensive privileges, and had the proud right of walking, like the nobles, on the wall side of the pavement. at florence, where the division of the guilds into _greater_, _intermediate_, and _lesser_ bore witness to their hierarchy before all the world, as there was no university, the judges and notaries took precedence; the judges, who were doctors of law, styled themselves _messer_, like the knights; the notaries called themselves simply _ser_, but this served to distinguish them from the commoners. the proconsul, or head of the corporation, went out robed in scarlet, and was always escorted by two gold-laced apparitors. in the first rank, too, were the doctors, but the barber-surgeons, simply because they performed operations, were relegated to a lower status; artists, in spite of being often ranked among craftsmen, gradually obtained social recognition. although architects were ranked with carpenters, and image makers and sculptors were often ranked with stonecutters, in many places the goldsmiths, who included chasers, moulders, enamellers, and statuaries, took a high rank. at paris they were classed among the _six guilds_, which, when the king, the queen, or the papal legate made a solemn entry into the city, enjoyed the coveted honour of carrying the blue canopy under which the august personage advanced. at florence they belonged--as a sub-order it is true--to the _speziali_ (apothecaries), which also included the painters and colour-merchants. while the artists, when they were ranked among the great guilds, only took a secondary and subsidiary position, the bankers, money-changers, wholesale traders, the great manufacturers (woollen merchants, haberdashers, or furriers) lorded it over the others with their wealth and splendour. this was, moreover, to a certain extent, homage rendered to brains and education. the exchange and the bank, where it was necessary to make rapid and complicated calculations, to transact business at a distance, and to do accounts in differing coinages (and sometimes, even, without coin), demanded varied knowledge and a certain mental agility. wholesale commerce, which henceforward became international, involved the power of taking long views, quickness in grasping a situation, general aptitude, and, in fact, qualities of mind and character which are not given to all.[82] the apothecaries had an advantage in that they sold spices which had come from distant lands. the trade in luxuries (furs and silks) was also concerned with foreign articles and took for granted a certain _savoir-faire_. "great" industry, for its part, demanded of those who carried it on, a talent for setting in motion, directing, and co-ordinating the complicated machinery of affairs or of men, and this gift of organization is far from common. however, it is easy to see that in the priority accorded to the great industrial and commercial guilds, the second of the principles we have mentioned was at work, namely, that a craft was considered more or less honourable according to the wealth it yielded. did the goldsmiths owe the respect which was shown them more to their artistic skill than to the fact that they were in the habit of handling jewels and precious metals? it would be difficult to say. but it is very certain that the bankers, money-changers, manufacturers of cloth and silk, the dealers in furs and in spices, and the haberdashers, who sold everything, would not have been among the most favoured, if they had not also been among the most wealthy. thanks to the crowns, ducats, and florins at their command, they could indulge in a sumptuous style of living and rival in luxury the lords of the land. like the latter they were in command of troops of men; in their way they were captains; they united the prestige of power with that of wealth. it was undoubtedly for this reason that the butchers, who had numerous assistants working under their orders and who made considerable profits, sometimes managed in paris to be included among the _six guilds_, and at florence headed the list of intermediate guilds. it was for a similar reason that in the same town the innkeepers and the stone and wood merchants, classed among the lesser guilds, were called _grosse_;[83] while the small tavern-keepers and those who retailed wood were not considered worthy of such a distinction. the third principle--the historical--was active in its turn. the later crafts, recently specialized, suffered from the competition of work done in the home from which they were imperfectly separated. if the butchers did not succeed in taking their place definitely among the six guilds of paris, or in becoming affiliated to the greater guilds of florence, it is probably because, for many years, the people were their own butchers, and the fatted pig or calf was killed at home; in other words because their field of action was an integral part of domestic industry. the same may be said of bakers and bread-makers; many peasants had their own oven in which they baked their bread,[84] and they held stubbornly to this right which they sometimes insisted on having solemnly recognized. there is no need for further explanations to make us understand why the bakers and bread-makers at florence came last on the list of the twenty-one official guilds. it is useless to attribute their comparative disrepute[85] to the supposed ease with which they could defraud their clients in the weight and quality of the bread they sold. unfortunately, the same suspicions might have been applied to many others. can it be forgotten that, at rome, the fishmongers were compelled to use scales with holes in them like skimmers, so that the water could run off and not add weight unfairly! thus on account of one or another of these three principles, "small" crafts and "small" commerce were far from attaining the level to which the great guilds rose; and in those days the organized world of labour was divided, sometimes into three groups, as at florence, perpignan,[86] or ghent, sometimes into two, as at zurich, and sometimes into a greater number. it is impossible to go into the details of the prolonged struggles between these unequal groups, of their efforts to maintain the balance among themselves, or to rule one over another, or of the alternate victories and defeats which they sustained. nearly two centuries--from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the fifteenth--are filled with the unrest caused by these quarrels which broke out in two or three hundred towns at once, and which, in view of the absence of dependable information concerning them, appear at a distance utterly chaotic. all we can do is to indicate the development which followed.[87] immediately upon the victory of the lower classes over lay and ecclesiastical feudalism--the first act accomplished by the communal revolution--the power passed to the rich burgesses. aristocracy of money naturally succeeded aristocracy of birth. this plutocracy was represented by the great merchant guilds, whose rise was soon followed by that of the great industrial guilds, destined in some cases to supplant them, but more often to remain their faithful allies. at florence, the _arte di calimala_ which included bankers and finishers and sellers of foreign cloth, was at first the most important of all; it was later dethroned by the _arte della lana_, composed of cloth manufacturers, but both were included in the federation of the greater guilds, which kept in its own hands the direction of affairs. at brussels and at louvain seven families long furnished the aldermen; at ghent thirty-nine _nouveaux riches_, and at amiens an oligarchy of several families, monopolized the direction of communal affairs. everywhere wool-merchants, money-changers, and goldsmiths became important in proportion to their wealth, not to their numbers. at beauvais of thirteen "peers" who constituted the municipal administration seven were nominated by one guild--that of the money-changers; the other twenty-one guilds nominated six. in short, what happened in the free towns was what usually happens in such a case, namely what happened in france in the nineteenth century. the victorious bourgeoisie wanted to keep to themselves the spoils of victory; they attempted to keep the lower classes--their allies of yesterday--in a precarious and subordinate position, and not only excluded them from the magistracy, but stamped all politics with a strongly plutocratic character. they sold to or reserved for themselves all lucrative posts; they administered the finances according to their own ideas without giving any account of their actions; they multiplied wars to kill inconvenient competition, or to open up new outlets for their commerce. as all this entailed enormous expense they resorted to loans which brought in high and steady interest, and to taxes on objects of daily consumption--reactionary taxes which demanded an equal sum, and therefore an unequal sacrifice, from rich and poor. they despised and oppressed the small craftsmen and the small retailers; they tried to limit or to suppress their right to combine or hold public meetings, and of course they were still harder on all that labouring population which was not admitted to the guilds, or which at least was only admitted in a subject capacity. we have already seen (chapter ii. 7) how they organized the first form of capitalist supremacy. the second act of the revolution now began. the town population divided itself into two separate groups, which soon became two opposing parties: the rich and the poor; the _fat_ and the _lean_; the great and the small; the good and the bad, as the chroniclers, who usually belonged to the leisured class, said with a certain savage naã¯vetã©. the crafts which claimed to be honourable were set in opposition to those which were considered low and inferior, and were supported and urged on by the masses, who, without rights or possessions, lived from day to day by hiring out their labour. the fight was complicated by the capricious intervention of the nobles or clergy who, sometimes by a natural affinity, joined the aristocracy of wealth; sometimes, in the desire to get the better of the great burgesses who kept them out of the government, allied themselves to the lower classes and made the balance turn in their favour. at certain times (this also is a law of history) the lower classes, in despair at never getting anything out of a selfish and implacable bourgeoisie, put their confidence in some soldier of fortune, some ephemeral dictator, some "tyrant" in the greek sense, who defeated their enemies and secured them a little well-being and consideration. on other occasions it was the rich burgesses who, frightened by the claims of the people, called on some foreign or military power to reduce the populace to order. thus, by separate roads, the republics and towns were travelling towards monarchy. before they reached this point, however, the "small" crafts had their days of supremacy, which were characterized by a peaceful policy, fiscal reforms, and the effort to make taxation just through the progressive taxation of incomes. they raised with themselves, out of the darkness and degradation into which they had fallen, the ragged and barefooted labourers (carders, porters, _blue-nails_, as the flemish labouring classes were called in derision), proletarians, wage-slaves, who in their turn desired political rights, a legal status in the city, a rank among the guilds, a share in the direction of the commune. in the year 1378 this movement seems to have been at its height.[88] a wave of revolution passed over europe at that time, and at florence as at ghent, at siena as at rouen, in paris as in london, for several years, months, and sometimes weeks, ciompi, chaperons blancs, maillotins, etc., made the ruling classes tremble for fear of union on the part of all this riff-raff. as a flemish chronicler expresses it: "an extraordinary thing was to be seen in those days; the common people gained the supremacy." their victory was short-lived. all the conservative forces combined against the intruders. the attempt, not to destroy but to reform and enlarge guild administration, to make the whole world of labour enter into it, was shown to be powerless; perhaps because the workmen and men of the "small" crafts did not clearly perceive what could give them freedom, or know how to unite into a cohesive body; perhaps, also, because the idea of hierarchy was still too strongly rooted in society; finally, perhaps because there was a fundamental contradiction between the administration of the closed guilds which stood for privilege, and the ideas of equality which tried to force an entrance into them. whatever may have been the cause, from this culmination they descended again towards their starting-point, the supremacy of money and of the great commercial and industrial guilds which no longer allowed their power to be shared by the lesser guilds. however, they stopped half-way. the preponderance was not restored either to the prelates or to the lords, neither did it remain with the lower classes. it was too late for the great, too early for the small. it remained and was consolidated in the hands of two powers, each of which relied on the other--the middle classes and the monarchy, the latter being represented in the great states by royalty and elsewhere by princes who might be _condottieri_ or upstart bankers. florence went to sleep under the enervating and corrupt rule of the medicis. an ever-narrowing merchant oligarchy governed genoa, venice, and the towns of the teutonic hanse. flanders was quiet under the authority of the dukes of burgundy and of its opulent guilds, to which craftsmen were no longer admitted. towards the middle of the fifteenth century the great epoch of the free towns was over, and the glory of the guilds went with them. nevertheless, while their restless and busy life lasted they had their days of greatness, heroism, and glory. sometimes, as at courtrai, they gained victories over armoured knighthood. they did better. in the neighbourhood of their cities they built roads, canals, and seaports. within the city walls they gave a splendid impetus to architecture. they built monumental halls like those of bruges, fountains, hospitals, and public promenades; they erected churches which were popular palaces, town halls which were carved like fine lace and flanked by towers and belfries from which the tocsin called the citizens to arms or to the assembly. they had pride and patriotism, and also desired to honour the profession which was for each of them a state within the state. they contended for the honour of giving a picture, a statue, or a tabernacle to the buildings which thus became the incarnation of the soul of a whole people. the traveller who visits florence admires the bas-reliefs half-way up the campanile attributed to giotto, which represent the origin of arts and crafts in the earliest ages of mankind; it is the stamp and blazonry of the working classes on their common work. guilds have passed away, as all human institutions must pass, imperfect and frail in their very nature; but before their passing they realized a great part of their high ideal, which, in its many aspects, i have tried to make plain. chapter v the merits and defects of the guild system we are now in a position to estimate the merits and defects of the guilds before they fell into decadence and decrepitude. it is necessary to consider separately the two types of guilds which we have described; for although they had characteristics in common, they present more differences than resemblances. let us see, then, how each acted on production and sale, and on producers and sellers. the guild system in the "small" crafts was at once a guarantee of, and a check on, production and sale. it endeavoured to insure and guard the consumer against adulteration, falsification, and dishonesty; to stamp goods with the character of finish, solidity, and relative perfection, thus giving to them something personal and therefore artistic; to keep within reasonable limits the profits of the manufacturer, who was also the merchant. on the other hand, the manufacturer only dealt with small quantities, was content with a very restricted clientã¨le, and aimed at nothing beyond the local market without much chance of either making a fortune or being ruined. production thus had but little vigour, and what was more serious still, its plasticity was interfered with. the statutes which regulated it resembled feudal castles, which protected but imprisoned those whom they sheltered. the manufacturer, hampered by the restrictions which surrounded him, could make no progress. industry, bound down by directions which were too precise, too detailed, too authoritative, could not adapt itself to the many caprices of fashion or to the changes of taste which are the very life of human civilizations; its forms were set, its methods petrified. invention could not have free play; it was accused of outraging healthy tradition; it was considered dangerous to set out to create anything new. in florence in 1286[89] a cooper complained of being boycotted by his guild because in making his barrels he bent his staves by means of water, which was, he said, an advantage to all who bought them. at paris[90] it was forbidden to mould seals with letters engraved on them; apparently the counterfeiting of seals and coins was feared. who knows, however, whether this prohibition did not retard by a hundred years the invention of printing, to which--when a method of making them movable had been discovered--these engraved letters gave birth? with regard to producers and sellers, we may go back to the simile of the strong castle. an instrument of defence for those who were within the guild easily degenerated into one of tyranny for those who were without. it was the centre of an ardent and exclusive corporate spirit. it resolved all the individual egoisms of its members into a great collective egoism. it is only necessary to recall the quarrels with neighbouring guilds, and the hostility shown towards workers who were not enrolled. to the masters of which it was composed it ensured at least a modest and honest livelihood, the just remuneration of labour, or, one might almost say, to use a modern formula, the whole product of labour. it even assured a refuge against misery and distress, the certainty of assistance in times of trouble, illness, old age, or misfortune. the fishermen of arles were bound to give one another mutual assistance in stormy weather;[91] in paris among the goldsmiths one shop remained open every sunday,[92] and the money from the sales was divided among the needy of the town and the widows and sick of the guild. fines were often used in this way. the guild sometimes even gave to the travelling workman who found himself at the end of his resources the means of going in search of work elsewhere. the guild secured to its members other advantages no less coveted: a good position in public processions and ceremonies when state dress was worn, or even at the melancholy solemnities of the public executions;[93] at lyons, at the time of the feast of st. john, two furriers with lighted torches paraded to the church door, mounted on two white mules, and at the entrance were received by the cross and the canons.[94] but more than all this, the guild was not only a great family for those who belonged to it, it was a little self-contained city, a diminutive commune which the members administered at will, and thereby prepared themselves for civic life and its duties; it was a training-ground for independent, well-informed, active citizens, who, with their parliamentary traditions, republican sentiments, and democratic hopes, formed, with their fellow-craftsmen of other crafts, a proud, practical, and courageous middle-class, as anxious to defend their town from outsiders as to beautify and adorn it. journeymen and apprentices shared in these honourable privileges, and did not suffer unduly from the inequality imposed on them, tempered as it was by simplicity of manners and by the thought that it was only temporary. the guilds of "great" commerce and of "great" industry also had their fine sense of honour, their complicated regulations, their exclusive spirit. but what distinguished them was the fact that their capital was large and that they dealt with a vast market; consequently, while the former were busy with exchange and transport, traversed land and sea with their convoys, and constituted themselves the carriers and brokers of the world, the latter intensified production; they possessed workshops which for those days were very large, and, in order to lower their general expenses, were interested in new inventions, and willingly adopted mechanical methods; at florence, for example, metallic carders, which were still prohibited in great britain in 1765, were already in use under the guild system. banking, commercial and maritime law, the science of finance, the art of production on a large scale and of securing international relations certainly owe a great deal to these merchants and manufacturers, who were the precursors of modern capitalists. the members of these powerful guilds amassed enormous fortunes, built themselves superb palaces, became counsellors and money-lenders to kings, towns, or popes. sometimes they were too adventurous in their speculations and their bankruptcies made a wide stir. accustomed to affairs of the highest importance and to court intrigues, they became diplomats, clever politicians, who willingly took their share in government; nor was it by chance that the first man in france who tried to reform the kingdom according to the views of the third estate was ã�tienne marcel, provost of the richest parisian guild. often, however, these great burgesses were of an aristocratic spirit. in the city they opposed the rise of the lower classes, and, in their magnificent palaces, princes in fact before they were princes in name, as the medicis became, they gradually extinguished around them the love of liberty and of republican virtues. at the same time they broke up that solidarity which was the very soul of the primitive guilds; they created a social system which perpetuated riches above and poverty below; they enslaved and cruelly exploited the clerks and workers they employed, their attitude towards whom was no longer that of masters towards journeymen or _compagnons_, but that of lords towards dependents. in a word, they broke from the conditions which no longer sufficed for the realization of their ambitions, and they were preparing, indeed they were already developing, an organization of labour which anticipated the future. they were the agents of that profound change which slowly brought about the death of the guilds. chapter vi external causes of decay a body of institutions, like a living body, begins by passing through a period of formation, growth, and consolidation, after which decay inevitably follows; it becomes feeble, disintegrates, decomposes, and finally dissolves. death is thus presented as the natural term of life with its constant wear and tear, as the necessary end of the spontaneous development peculiar to living beings. but it is also determined by the pressure of outside forces, by the action of environment. thus the guild system held within itself elements of dissolution, and at the same time met with destructive forces from without; it declined and decayed under the combined influences of internal and external causes. it seems fitting to begin with the external causes, since these were the most important. in an unchanging environment living beings could exist for long unchanged, but the changes ever at work without hasten changes within, from the very fact that the organism is itself at work. thus it was that the guilds were first of all affected by the profound changes going on around them. the sphere in which they had to work was both extended and modified. we must follow out the consequences of both these changes. 1. _the extension of the market and its results._--the fifteenth century saw the formation of the great states in europe. france, which felt herself to be a nation when she was trampled under foot by the english, was the first to become a unity, and for several centuries drew her power and her greatness from the start which she thus gained. spain was concentrated under the authority of ferdinand and isabella. england, worn out after a terrible civil war, found rest under the tudor dynasty. in germany, which was still very divided, the hanseatic league included twenty-four cities. even in italy the restless republics, ever jealous of their independence, were absorbed into larger territories and placed under a common supremacy. everywhere the endless subdivision of the middle ages gave place to larger groupings, possessing fuller life and wider interests. hence a new situation arose for the cities; among those which in every state had up till now been on an equal footing one rose to be the capital, the others, with diminished prestige and importance, were only secondary centres. they also ceased to be islets where the people lived lives apart; from henceforward they formed an integral part of a whole which surrounded them and no longer allowed of a proud isolation; they could no longer treat their neighbours as foreigners or enemies; they found themselves bound together by the necessity of obeying the same laws and the same sovereign. it followed that _city economy_, becoming narrow and exclusive, grew difficult and by degrees impossible.[95] it was replaced by _national economy_. this meant that the commercial market, instead of being confined to the inhabitants of a town and its suburbs, included henceforth the province, the duchy, and by degrees the whole kingdom. above all, it meant that the central power no longer legislated for people enclosed within a small area, but that it attempted to unify over the whole surface of a considerably enlarged territory the official language, moneys, weights and measures, as well as the regulations of industry and the judicial forms; that it suppressed as far as possible the tolls which obstructed the roads and rivers; that it carried back to the frontier the barriers which had been set up on the boundaries of every little domain; that for a localizing spirit it substituted the desire to reconcile the interests of the different regions between which it played the part of arbitrator and peacemaker. doubtless the economic policy adopted by the great states did not sensibly differ from that practised in the towns. a system does not disappear without bequeathing traditions and customs to its successor. national economy copied the methods of city economy. when colbert, for instance, tried to realize for france the ideal of self-sufficiency, when for this reason he wanted to sell as much as possible and buy as little as possible abroad, to create industries which were lacking, to prevent those which existed from leaving the country, to encourage the export of manufactured goods while watching over their proper manufacture, and to hinder the import of similar goods by barricading the country with customs tariffs, he was only taking up once more and making general an old system formerly tried by florence or venice and adopted later by kings and ministers in france and england, by henry iv. and notably by richelieu. this mercantile system has been christened colbertism, and the name will serve provided that it is known that colbert was not its father but its godfather. nevertheless, in spite of the continuity of the principles which guide great governors, the mere fact that the enlarged area in which the guilds operated contained several towns whose jealousy might be measured by their rights, was a terrible blow for the guilds; each town with its narrow boundaries, finding itself completely out of harmony with the world in which it was condemned to live, had to adapt itself to the new conditions or die. not only, however, had the internal markets grown larger, the external market had also extended enormously, and it was no longer for the spices and gems of the levant alone that ships and caravans set out. in the south, vasco da gama had discovered the route to the indies; in the west, christopher columbus, while seeking those same indies, had come upon america; in the north, russia and scandinavia had proved to be magnificent fields for traders to exploit. africa, which as yet no one had dared to penetrate, was approached and the existence of oceania suspected. europe, in revenge for old invasions, overflowed in her turn into other continents; she expanded into distant colonies; the sun no longer set on her possessions. the first result was a rearrangement of commercial routes, a formidable rush to the west. the mediterranean basin, cut off from the east by the turks, ceased to be the meeting-place of nations and the universal centre of commerce. genoa and florence, the mothers and glorious victims of columbus and amerigo vespucci, began to decay, and the very source of their wealth was assailed by the discoveries of their children. beneath the trappings of gold and silk that yet covered them there was left only the melancholy glory of their dying prosperity. venice the rich, venice the beautiful, slumbering in the fever-laden air of her canals from which the life was ebbing, slowly died in her gorgeous setting of palaces and churches and degenerated into a city of dreams, luxury, and pleasure, where the leisured and the gay came to seek the shadow of a great past and the splendours of a half-oriental civilization. many cities, like pisa or siena, deserved with bruges to be called "the dead," cut off from the ocean by the encroaching sands and from liberty by the spanish lords of flanders. how could the guilds hope to escape from the consequences of misfortunes which struck at their very roots? an even graver menace threatened them. to take advantage of the new outlets, to satisfy a clientã¨le henceforth scattered over the most diverse countries, it was necessary to produce more, and to produce more it was necessary to produce in a different way. production was transformed to meet the needs of trade. capitalism, which had hitherto been confined to a few towns, received an impetus and developed with unexpected vigour. "great" commerce, which spread over an immense area, created exchanges and banks, and great financial institutions for the circulation of capital; it formed great companies which undertook to exploit the resources of new countries; it accelerated transport and built up in the press a valuable instrument for the spread of information and for advertisement. in its use of credit it no longer encountered the displeasure of the church, which, together with civil law, became reconciled to loans on interest and recognized the practice as long as the rate was moderate. its coffers, filled with the gold and silver of the galleons which came from mexico and peru, gave europe a hint of a hitherto unsuspected danger--the glut of money. capital, too, which had accumulated in the landlords' and merchants' chests, took a leading part in business activities by reason of its power to command; it became a moving force. henceforward, as we have already seen in the case of the woollen merchants, three functions, hitherto united in the person of the small craftsman of the towns, became separated: those of the _merchant_, who bought raw material and sold finished goods; of the _manufacturer_, who possessed the appliances of labour; and of the _workman_, who wrought with his own hands. three classes of men answer to this specialization at the present day: the _traders_, who are not producers, but act as middlemen between producer and consumer, deciding what shall be produced and concerning themselves solely with buying and selling; the _industrial capitalists_, who, at the tradesmen's orders, direct the transformation of the raw materials entrusted to them, in workshops and with machinery which are their property; finally the _workmen_, who, mere wage-earners, carry out manual or mechanical work as they are told. these three classes of men have different interests. the big merchants, with their bold speculations, are impatient of anything which hinders circulation: town dues, customs, tolls, differences of coinage, weights and measures, all regulations, everything, in fact, which tends to isolate towns and countries. when louis xi. convoked the states general in 1484, the town deputies expressed themselves in favour of the freedom of trade, which now felt strong enough to stand alone. when henry iv., on the advice of montchrestian and laffemas, wanted to secure french markets to the french by increasing customs tariffs, all the guilds consulted declared themselves in favour of the project, with the exception of the mercers--"sellers of everything, makers of nothing," as they were called--thus plainly expressing the hostility of wholesale trade to the exclusive policy which had been pursued by the towns. the great traders represented a revolutionary tendency with regard to the guild system; they were its constant enemies; they ended by being its destroyers. the manufacturers, for their part, were not averse to being protected against foreign competition; they were indeed inclined to ask for this protection. like the guilds, they had a predilection for privilege and monopoly, but were not in agreement with them on some essential points. in order to produce much and profitably they were in need of cheap and abundant labour. ignoring the rules of apprenticeship, they hired foreigners, peasants, women, and children; in the sixteenth century, in the town of norwich, which from being agricultural had become industrial, children of six were employed in the factories.[96] when they did not crowd the workers together in enormous workshops, they resorted to what sometimes goes by the equivocal name of "the domestic system," which i prefer to call "scattered manufacture." in the towns they employed men and women, who, working in their own homes, were sheltered from inquisitive eyes. such workers were found in the suburban and country districts, in any places which were beyond the ordinary jurisdiction of wardenship and mastership. or again, they employed labour in the hospitals, orphanages, or work-rooms of religious orders, which had escaped from the jealous supervision of the guilds. in picardy, at certain periods, the weaver workmen thus scattered among the villages numbered 10,000.[97] the same thing was to be found in brittany,[98] normandy, and dauphiny, in the manufacture of linen and hemp; in velay in that of lace; in auvergne in that of trimmings; in the rhone valley in that of silk. in england the peasants, driven from home, impoverished, eaten out by sheep, deprived of their means of livelihood by the enclosure of huge pasture lands to which they might no longer take their cattle, provided a wonderful reserve army for industrial magnates in search of labour.[99] the town artisans fought with desperation against the blows struck at town monopolies by these new departures.[100] opposition--significant but utterly useless--was offered on every hand to the new demands of large-scale production. risings against foreign workers, like those at norwich; the many attempts to limit the number of apprentices; the english law of 1555 known as the weavers' act, which forbade a master to own or hire out more than a certain number of looms; and the innumerable lawsuits in france brought by guilds to check the disastrous competition of peasant labour were all illustrations of this opposition. another necessity of large-scale production, involving still greater consequences, was mechanical labour. "great" industry demanded the division--even the disintegration--of labour. the product, before it is finished, passes through the hands of various craft groups. it undergoes a series of processes which follow one another and are interdependent, and of which each is carried out by specially trained workers. this was the case in the manufacture of wool from the thirteenth century. the wool had to be washed, beaten, carded, combed, oiled, spun, woven, fulled; then the cloth had to be stretched, dyed, dressed, and folded. it is a well-known fact that if each class of work is entrusted to a special class of workers, manufacture costs less both in money and in time. but it must be added that this disintegration of the whole process into a succession of operations leads straight to the mechanical system.[101] the simple and monotonous tasks performed under this system of subdivision by the different classes of workers owe their automatic and half-mechanical character to the uniformity of the movements they demand. it needed very little to complete the technical revolution already begun and to make hands of wood or metal accomplish what had been done by human hands. a machine may be described as a more or less complicate engine, which, by means of an animate or inanimate motive force, executes movements which hitherto have been performed by the human hand. the weaving loom and the spinning wheel were already rudimentary machines. the middle ages knew, under the name of "mills," more complicate appliances, of which many date from the alexandrine period, which was to graeco-roman antiquity what the nineteenth century is to modern times--the era of science and machinery. wateror wind-mills, mills for grinding flour, for crushing nuts or olives, for raising water; iron mills; mills for fulling cloth, for making paper, sugar, silk stuffs--all these expensive appliances were in use, and gradually spread over europe during the period which brought to a close and immediately followed the middle ages. thus old industries changed their method, and new industries were from the start modelled on the new system. printing may be quoted as an example; the printing press, with its movable letters, took the place of writing--the work of human fingers. it may be said of it that it was born mechanical, and if we ask why it killed the slow industry of the old copyists who protested in vain, we need only look at the unexpected results it achieved. the identity of the copies produced; the speed, which allowed demands hitherto forced to wait months and years to be met in a few days, and which gave, so to speak, wings to thought; and the unheard-of cheapness, which reduced the price of a bible from 600 to 60 crowns and even less (things which evidently could not be obtained without the co-operation of the prince of darkness, as was proved by the red characters which flamed at the head of the chapters), such were the diabolical but invaluable advantages which in less than half a century assured the triumph and the rapid spread of the new invention. if we remember the thousand-and-one prohibitions with which the guild statutes bristled--the prohibition to mould seals with engraved letters, the regulations which in every craft prevented all change and consequently all improvement in manufacture, it is easy to understand how "great" industry, without deliberate effort, but by its very development, overthrew the economic order which had reigned in the middle ages. the guilds, moreover, with the best intentions in the world, fought against innovations which seemed to them abominations. in england in the year 1555 the _gig-mill_, a mechanical appliance, was forbidden by law.[102] the first english coaches, called "flying coaches," were attacked and censured[103] because they threatened to injure the art of riding and the manufacture of saddles and spurs, and because, being too cold in winter and too hot in summer, they were bad for the health of travellers; but, above all, because, on account of their extreme speed, they would be dangerous. the public authorities were begged to limit them to thirty miles a day (rather less than the distance a fast train covers to-day in an hour); and later, in france, when the _turgotines_ were instituted, which shortened by half the length of a journey, an abbot added the strange complaint that, by going so fast, they deprived the passenger of the means of hearing mass.[104] "great" commerce and "great" industry, however, continued to develop in the direction they had originally taken, and finally overcame the old-fashioned timidity of the guilds, which were gradually reduced to defending the interests of the small crafts. the great merchant guilds were predominant at first; the lord mayor of london was chosen from the city guilds, and the guild of the river merchants gave to paris its coat-of-arms and motto and was an embryonic form of the municipal councils which followed later. as time went on, however, they disappeared or separated themselves from the organized crafts. at paris, the hanse of the river merchants does not figure among the _six guilds_ which head the list, although they did not actually lose their privileges till the year 1672. in london,[105] the city guilds slowly ceased to have any connection with the crafts whose names they bore. the great capitalists, whether bankers, merchants, or great manufacturers, voluntarily formed themselves into a separate group and, as far as possible, cut themselves clear of the trammels of the guild system. meantime, under the system of large-scale production, the workers were either subjected to the guilds as we have seen them at florence in the _arte della lana_,[106] or else, if they were not enrolled, were treated by their individual masters in such a way as to keep them permanently in a precarious and subordinate position. whether they worked crowded together in great workshops--where, owing to their numbers, they were under severe discipline--or at home, in which case their isolation only brought them, under the appearance of liberty, harder conditions, they soon saw that, with the rarest possible exceptions, they were destined to be wage-earners for life. they no longer had the hope, the ambition, even the idea of one day owning the factory in which they laboured, or the business which every week paid its thousands of workers. the divorce was complete between the manual worker and the instruments of production, and, in consequence, between the men who were the servants of these expensive appliances and the master-manufacturers who owned them. masters and workmen, henceforth separated by their present and their future, by their education, their manner of life, and their aspirations, formed two classes, united as yet, in that both were interested in the intensity of industrial activity, but opposed, in that the one wished to keep the other in subjection and to sweat out of him as much work as possible, as cheaply as possible. it is from this time, and still only in "great" industry, that a working class can be spoken of. for a long time it was fairly small; but the self-consciousness it was acquiring was shown by the strikes, the combinations, and the attempts at union which were common in england from the sixteenth century; by combinations which were already national, like that of the papermakers in france at the end of the seventeenth century; by the popular songs in which the discontent of the workmen was expressed in bitter complaints or biting irony.[107] the energy and diplomacy displayed in the sixteenth century by the master printers of lyons and paris in preventing their workmen from striking (_fair le tric_, which was the name given in those days to concerted abstention from work[108]) is well known; so is the song sung in england by the wool workers[109] towards the end of the seventeenth century, the title of which is curious. the master is supposed to speak. the clothier's delight; or, the rich men's joy, and the poor men's sorrow wherein is expressed the craftiness and subtility of many clothiers in england, by beating down their workmen's wages. combers, weavers, and spinners, for little gains, doth earn their money, by taking of hard pains. _to the tune of_ "jenny, come tae me," etc., "paddington's pound," or "monk hath confounded," etc. of all sorts of callings that in england be, there is none that liveth so gallant as we; our trading maintains us as brave as a knight, we live at our pleasure, and take our delight; we heapeth up riches and treasure great store, which we get by griping and grinding the poor. and this is a way for to fill up our purse, although we do get it with many a curse. throughout the whole kingdom, in country and town, there is no danger of our trade going down, so long as the comber can work with his comb, and also the weaver weave with his lomb; the tucker and spinner that spins all the year, we will make them to earn their wages full dear. and this is the way, etc. in former ages we us'd to give, so that our work-folks like farmers did live; but the times are altered, we will make them know all we can for to bring them under our bow; we will make to work hard for sixpence a day, though a shilling they deserve if they had their just pay. and this is the way, etc. and so on, for twelve stanzas. from now onwards can be found all those motives for disagreement with which the "social question," as it has developed and grown more bitter, has made us familiar;--increase of hours of work, lowering of wages by the employment of apprentices, women, and children; reductions of the sums agreed upon by means of fines, payment in kind,[110] and other tricks; draconian regulations; harsh foremen; the binding of the workers to the workshop, as the serfs were to the soil, by money advances which they could never repay. events follow their usual course: the story is one of struggles, prosecutions, appeals to the law, and finally, when no more can be said, battles with folded arms and closed factories--strikes by workmen or employers. there follow riots in which machinery is wrecked and attacks are sometimes made upon the masters themselves. repression ensues; the carrying of arms is forbidden, the rights of combination and public meeting denied at pain of death. and, in reply to these measures, the workers retaliate by emigration, by secret societies, by recourse to force which may damp down the fire but cannot prevent it from smouldering till in time it bursts out afresh. the guilds and their statutes were of but feeble assistance in calming these conflicts. the greater part of the workers in the great industries did not belong to them. worse still, the guild system itself suffered from the startling inequality which separated its great manufacturers from their employees. between rich masters and small masters, between the sons of masters and the poor journeymen, the gulf ever widened, and an institution was soon to reveal the growing friction. i have already spoken of the separate societies, now of long standing, governed by journeymen (_compagnons_); but _compagnonnage_, united to these ancient associations by more than one tie, had a more extensive influence. its origins are obscure.[111] it is hardly found before the beginning of the fifteenth century, and developed particularly in central europe, france, the low countries, and in germany. it seems to be allied to freemasonry in its origins, but was distinguished by an activity peculiar to itself. freemasonry, as far as it is possible to pierce the mists which envelop its early history, was essentially a federation of building trades. it took its birth from the bands of workmen who had their _raison d'ãªtre_ in the construction of those vast cathedrals whose harmonious proportions are certainly the most perfect legacy left to us by the middle ages. the aim of the association was to keep in order the crowds of half-nomadic labourers, who for half a century or more would establish themselves in a town; to transmit from one generation to the next the secrets of the craft; to act as arbitrator in the quarrels which might arise among this restless population. born in the shadow of the sanctuary, it was naturally mystic and religious in character; it claimed to go back to the templars, or even to the builders of solomon's temple; it was the child of an age which delighted in mystery and occult knowledge, and it imposed on its members a complicated initiation, formidable tests, signs of recognition, and pass-words. created for men who sometimes transferred their labour and their plans from one end of europe to the other, it scattered its lodges over different lands; it was international, and in this differed profoundly from the guilds. but with this exception, it took its place within the existing order of things, accepted the hierarchy of the guild system, and had its three degrees--_i.e._ included apprentices, journeymen, and masters. it was a mixed institution as much and even more bourgeois than working-class. _compagnonnage_, too, covered many craft-guilds, of which the most important were closely connected with building (carpenters, stone-cutters, joiners) or with the clothing trades. it had its mystic legends, its symbolic rites in which baptism and communion figured, its claims to a long genealogy, its tests, pass-words, and strange ceremonies, in fact the whole armoury of a society which believes secrecy to be of vital importance. it was a league for mutual and fraternal assistance, which spread over many countries and undertook to procure for its travelling members moral support, lodging, travel-money, and, above all, work. but it differed from the guilds and from freemasonry in that no masters were admitted. it concerned itself exclusively with obtaining work for _compagnons_, and with looking after their professional interests. it thus emphasized the separation which had taken place between masters and workers. it was feared as an instrument of war, suspected on account of its secret methods by the public authorities which persecuted it, and by the church which accused it of disseminating heretical ideas and condemned it in 1655 by the voice of the faculty of theology at paris; it was also exposed to the attacks of the guilds. nevertheless it survived all this, and was strong enough to organize strikes, and to black-list the firms which did not accept its conditions, and even the towns in which it was persecuted.[112] of course its strength and power of emancipation must not be exaggerated. _compagnonnage_ remained bound by the customs and liable to the vices of the guild system. if it escaped from the restraining spirit it did not escape from the corporate spirit; it jealously closed its ranks, and would only admit certain crafts; it was divided into hostile rites or _devoirs_ which took for patrons solomon, maã®tre jacques, or pã¨re soubise. violence was frequent (_topage_ for instance), and bloody battles for the monopoly of work in a particular town often took place. besides, it only included a privileged minority who ill-treated and despised not only those who were outside their ranks but even those who aspired to enter them. it was on the whole a fighting league, and imposed conditions on certain masters; but it was far from being a combination of the whole of the working classes against the masters. centuries were yet to pass before the development of "great" industry, by constantly increasing the number employed, by turning the suburbs of great cities and the black country into seething human anthills, forced all these multitudes of workers, in spite of wide differences of occupation, to unite into a great army. as has been said, the division of society into guilds is vertical; it only becomes horizontal when the conditions common to the great army of wage-earners blot out all differences of craft and origin. 2. _the change in intellectual conditions. the renaissance and the reformation._--we have summed up the effects produced on the guilds by the enlargement of the environment in which they developed. this environment, however, changed not only in extent but also in character. without going into the details of the changes they passed through, we can see that three great events stand out in the history of europe from the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, and it is impossible that they should have failed to react on the system we are studying; these are the renaissance, the reformation, and the increase in the powers of the state. the great intellectual revolution which has been named the renaissance was at first a return to greek and roman antiquity. literary men and scholars, filled with adoration for a glorious past, abandoned their mother tongue for that of the great dead, imitated virgil, cicero, demosthenes, swore by jupiter and mercury, insisted, like montaigne, on being given the title of roman citizens, or like erasmus, ramus, or melanchthon, took neo-classical names. they restored ancient methods of thought and action; they wove conspiracies in imitation of brutus; they dated their letters by the calends and the ides; they became pagans once more in appearance and sometimes in reality; in opposition to christianity--the religion of sadness, resignation, poverty, and of the struggle against the flesh and passion--they re-established love, pleasure, beauty, and the joy of life. they wakened from their long slumber the old systems of philosophy, and as disciples not only of aristotle, but of plato, epicurus, and diogenes, they became accustomed to coquetting with every kind of doctrine and often acquired an elegant dilettantism. these new conceptions, which demanded a knowledge of languages requiring long study at college, could only be held by an _ã©lite_. to have the right of initiation into the ancient authors it was necessary to belong to the leisured classes; it took time to read and re-read them in order to extract the "marrow within." in a word, the renaissance was fundamentally aristocratic. most of its classical scholars and poets profess disdain and hatred of the ignorant masses. rien ne me plaist que ce qui peut desplaire au jugement du rude populaire cries one of the brilliant satellites of our plã©iade.[113] it follows logically that the education it instituted and which was founded on the study of greek and latin drew a clear line of demarcation between the children thus brought up, who were destined to hold the highest social positions, and the others doomed to inferior tasks and studies. it will therefore be understood that the renaissance influenced the condition of the workers. it swelled the tide which was carrying society towards class division; it helped to separate still further the tradesman and the manual worker; and above all it separated the artist and the craftsman, those twin brothers, who till then had shared the same life and the same ideals. the artist was no longer the interpreter of the thought of a whole people, but, working for the rich and powerful bankers or princes, who required him to reproduce archaic forms and consequently demanded of him a certain amount of education, he left the ranks of the people, rose to wealth, to the ranks of the upper middle classes, and figured at court; he and his fellows grouped themselves into special brotherhoods such as that of st. luke at rome, and before long formed academies inaccessible to the vulgar. compare the life of raphael with that of giotto. in these days, the craftsman remained a working man, lost in the crowd, watching from afar and from his lowly station his successful comrade, who no longer recognized the poor relation he had left behind. separations of this kind abound in almost every direction. in the middle ages grocers and apothecaries, barbers and surgeons, were classed together. but in the sixteenth century the apothecary, on his admission to mastership, had to reply in latin, and henceforth he no longer considered the spice merchant his equal. so in france, from the year 1514, the bond between the two professions was broken. the historian can easily prove that this separation of art and craft was often harmful to both; that art, isolated from the warm heart of the people, became conventional, cold, stiff, and artificial; that craft, relegated to a lower position, no longer sought for beauty, and was condemned to express itself in inferior, routine work; but, taking the guilds alone, this separation certainly weakened the mediaeval system. deprived of members whose gifts were their glory, they lost in power as in prestige. in spite of all this, and although the renaissance is from some points of view a retrogression towards social conditions which had long disappeared, it was more than this; it was the awakening of the spirit of initiative; it was a forward impulse, a bold step in advance. it was not limited to a mere renewal of relations with classical antiquity; it stimulated inventive effort, and taught men to think for themselves once more, to open their eyes and to observe. it thus gave a strong impetus to science. the age is rich in many-sided geniuses and seekers after truth, who widened the field of human knowledge and power in every direction. it saw the birth of those universalists, leonardo da vinci and michael angelo, who may be likened to trees, which, by the mysterious process of grafting, bear twenty different kinds of fruit. in short, the renaissance was a setting free of intelligence, a breaking forth of truths, which, thanks to printing, spread all over the world and became a lasting possession. it is true, indeed, that mankind, like the wandering jew, is always moving forward, and never comes completely to a standstill. man moves ceaselessly because he is alive. but after the great creative movement which is the glory of modern times, his progress is more apparent, surer, and more rapid. from this time must be dated a permanent alliance between science and industry, exemplified in that heroic potter, bernard palissy, who spent his life and fortune in rediscovering the secret of certain enamelled pottery. the pity is that this alliance, so fruitful in new methods, in the exploitation of new materials and new products, was formed at the expense of the guilds; for the innovations which it rendered necessary were the death of their rules governing manufacture. everything contributed, as we can see, to the break-up of the organization of labour which they embodied. the same may be said of the reformation, the religious renaissance, which was both a development of and a reaction from its fellow. it could hardly be expected that a revolution which rent western christianity asunder should spare the unity of the craft guilds. true, it did not act in the same way: by making the reading of the bible obligatory it encouraged the education of the people, and in this way it raised the craftsman. it found, and not without reason, its first adherents among workmen,--saxon miners, carders from the town of meaux; it turned towards democracy, towards theories of equality. those who carried it to extremes, like the anabaptists of mã¼nster, pictured a government in which all the guilds, great and small, should be made equal; their ideal was to turn all organized crafts, superior and inferior, into a sort of public service; to establish a kind of biblical communism. their leader and prophet was john of leyden, an aged working tailor.[114] if this was only a passing birth-throe of protestantism at least the guilds took a large share in the great movements which shook holland and england. it really seems that the reformation brought a renewal of vigour and activity to those states in which it triumphed. but in many countries the fight between the two faiths was so fierce that many cities were devastated and ruined by it. in germany, after the thirty years' war, magdeburg, wurtzburg, heidelberg, spire, and mannheim were simply heaps of ruins, almost deserted. the teutonic hanse which had been so powerful was a wreck; the protestant and catholic towns had broken the union in which their strength lay. in a hundred places, since it was admitted that the religion of the prince was law for his subjects (_cujus regio, hujus religio_) whole bodies of people and industries moved away; workmen and masters went in search of refuge among their co-religionists. the guild system was profoundly disturbed by this; the new-comers, when they were too numerous, were not always very warmly welcomed by their brothers in god, and even when they were received, they practically forced their way into a closed system which they strained to breaking. in places where the population remained divided between the two creeds, or where, more from indifference to, than respect for, the beliefs of others, they made a lame attempt at tolerance, it was extremely difficult to get men of the two sects to live together in the same body. just as the jews had been excluded from the guilds in the middle ages, so now the protestants were kept out. in france, from the time of richelieu, fifty years before the repeal of the edict of nantes, the professions of a doctor, apothecary, grocer, and many others were forbidden to them.[115] then came the great exodus of 1685, which scattered the french huguenots over every place in europe where they had friends, and planted colonies of refugees in switzerland, england, holland, prussia, denmark, and sweden. "they carried commerce away with them," says jurieu, one of their pastors; and _commerce_ in the language of those days included what we call industry. the fact is that they naturalized abroad many manufactures which had hitherto been unknown. england alone learnt from them the arts of silk-making, gobelins tapestry-making, and sail-making. what then became of the guilds which remained in france, of the monopoly at which they aimed, and of the secrecy which was one of their methods of securing it? it was a terrible blow for them when, as at abbeville, 80 families out of 160 left the country, or 1600 out of 2200, as happened at the election of amiens.[116] how, thus mutilated, could they stand against the foreign competition of which their own members had become the most formidable allies? 3. _the change in political conditions._--changes in political conditions affected the guilds even more than intellectual and religious changes. europe, in spite of waves of revolt, passed through a period in which great powers prevailed. the state, which was becoming centralized, increased its prerogatives and complacently interfered in economic matters. the motives which determined its intervention were sometimes a purely _political_ interest, sometimes a _fiscal_ interest, sometimes a _public_ or _national_ interest. (_a_) the political interest of sovereigns is to subdue rival powers within their territories. for this reason they first attacked the liberties of any cities where the spirit was bad, that is to say, as a king of prussia said later, _frondeur_, intractable, or restless. in spain their _fueros_ were taken from them; in france, town liberties decreased, till they were almost entirely destroyed by richelieu and louis xiv. in germany, the number of free hanseatic cities dropped from eighty to three. the italian republics fell one by one under the domination of a monarch, and, though venice survived, she had concentrated her government in the hands of three state judges, magistrates as autocratic and irresponsible as kings. in the low countries, bruges lost all jurisdiction over her suburbs in 1435, and ghent lost the power in 1451, and also the right to nominate the aldermen. liã©ge, like her neighbour dinant, was destroyed, crushed, reduced to nothing. in the following century antwerp, suspected of sympathy with the reformation, lived under the spanish yoke, pillaged and down-trodden. municipal and guild life were so closely united that it was impossible to strike at one without injuring the other. in the city of liã©ge, the thirty-two crafts and the _perron_ which was the emblem of its independence were taken away at a single stroke. at florence, no sooner had the medicis become dukes of tuscany than the constitution of the _arte_ was altered in such a way as to make it impossible for them to exercise any influence in the direction of public affairs. in england,[117] the king and parliament agreed in forbidding the guilds to make ordinances without the consent of the chancellor of the exchequer and the crown treasurer, or to fix the price of goods, and aimed at supplanting them in supervising the quality of products. the statute of labourers in 1563, in the reign of elizabeth, gave to justices of the peace, that is to say, to magistrates who were not craftsmen, the right of fixing workmen's wages. in france, philip the beautiful ill-treated the confraternities and found no difficulty in modifying the rules of the parisian industries.[118] the crown, however, differentiated between the guilds: at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the doctor of theology, john gerson, lays down in the clearest terms the alliance between the crown and the rich burgesses: "all the harm," he says, "arises from the fact that the king and the good burgesses have been put under servitude by the outrageous enterprise of men of small standing.... god has permitted it in order that we may know the difference between royal domination and that of any people whatever: for that which is royal is general and should be gentle: that of the low-born is a tyrannical domination which destroys itself."[119] in accordance with this principle, royalty was tactful in its dealings with the great guilds, and willingly bestowed on them honorary privileges. francis i. not only confirmed to the six guilds, which formed the merchant aristocracy of the capital, the precedence which they enjoyed at solemn functions, but of the thirty-six wardens of these greater guilds as they would have been called at florence, he formed a high council of parisian industry. even with the others, the crown proceeded gently at first. it desired to absorb, and not to suppress. it realized what an advantage it would be if these independent institutions, still under the influence of their feudal origin, could be transformed into state institutions, protected and obedient! it was with this end in view that henry iii. decided that their organization, hitherto local, should be extended throughout the whole kingdom, to the scattered villages as well as to the towns. the city (urban) guild was therefore converted into a national organism, and the guild was made compulsory at the same time that it was put under tutelage. this unification, which placed it under the direct supervision of royal agents, was, however, only to operate on paper. it encountered the displeasure of the craft guilds; worse still, it was in opposition to the first principle of the whole system. the ordinance allowed the inhabitants of the suburbs to follow their craft within the cities, and the inhabitants of one town to settle in any other, with the exception of paris[120]--a last concession to an ancient tradition. it was something quite new for craftsmen to possess equal rights and for crafts to be organized like those of paris throughout the whole of france; but it was only in accordance with the general trend of french civilization. this sudden enlargement of the guild system, however, was practically its death, and there were many who from this time did not hesitate to say so openly.[121] the edict, renewed by henry iv. in 1597, was next extended to include merchants, and was completed by the abolition of the _king of the mercers_, who still exercised a certain amount of authority in the fairs; for even so trumpery a king made the king at the louvre uneasy! the crown was the less willing to give up its ideas of realizing unity in the industrial domain in that it mistrusted the small crafts; it bore in mind the fact that, formerly, when the holy league tried to create a sort of intermunicipal federal republic, the masters' and journeymen's confraternities eagerly joined in the attempt. it did not forget that, in the time of the fronde, the guilds were credited with having had the repeal of the privileges granted to the great merchants and the prohibition to import silks into the kingdom inserted in the peace treaty forced on the regent by his rebel subjects. little by little it reduced the authority remaining to them. it was tenacious in carrying into every sphere the form of organization at which it aimed. it made further attempts in 1673 and 1691; between the first date and the second the guilds officially constituted and classified rose from 60 to 127, and what clearly shows the meaning of this administrative classification is the fact that it nominated, or threatened the nomination of, the headmen by officers of the crown. a very inadequate idea, however, of the encroachments of royal authority will be gained if the solemn publication of edicts alone is remembered, and the daily, incessant attempt of its agents to restrict the jurisdiction both of local and of guild authorities is ignored. no doubt a good deal of the economic jurisdiction formerly exercised by the town magistrates still existed. contraventions of regulations, and struggles between producers and consumers, between employers and employees, and between allied and rival crafts, were under municipal jurisdiction.[122] the right of pronouncing judgment on such points as falsifications, the observance of religious festivals, the price of merchandise and the rate of wages, was still left to the municipality by colbert. naturally its powers were greater or less according as the town was royal, seigneurial, or communal. but it was not unusual for it to retain the right of collecting taxes, and of nominating supervisors who controlled crafts; for it to create masterships and organize charity workshops which changed into regular factories; or to withhold the monopoly granted to the guilds. it is none the less true that communal jurisdiction grew less year by year. attention must be drawn to the fact that the craft guilds sometimes passed it by and of their own accord applied to the central authority for intervention. thus, questions of provisions, public health, monopoly, speculation, regulations for the prevention of fraud, and the protection of apprentices, one by one came under the jurisdiction of _parlements_, ministers, governors, and of their delegates. colbert, in his general rules for manufacture which date from 1666 to 1669, codifies, in the name of the state, the minute directions contained in the guild statutes on questions of apportionment, bad work, etc. at the end of the seventeenth century, then, the guilds still existed, but had been subjugated and deprived of their principal rights. behind the solid front which they still presented were ruin, desolation, and decay. (_b_) it is probable that the crown in france allowed them to live and decline in peace because they supplied an easy method of directing commerce and industry; but it was also because they were fruitful sources of production. the crown often disguised with fine phrases the _fiscal interest_ which inspired it; it is, however, easily discoverable in three different forms. sometimes it confirmed, strengthened, and extended the monopoly of the guilds and made them pay for the favour; sometimes it sold to outsiders privileges which encroached on and compromised this monopoly; and finally, it sometimes threatened them, and only withdrew threats in return for ready money. the great ordinance of 1581 and the special edict of taxes of 1673 may be taken as examples of the first method. in 1581 the strengthening of the organization of the guilds by purging them of certain abuses and irregularities was the pretext cited; the king spoke and appeared to act as the great national justice of the peace; but the real object of the measure, which extended to the kingdom a system hitherto localized, may well have been the filling of the royal treasury into which fell a part of the matriculation fees paid by each new master. in 1673 trouble was no longer taken to find a pretext; the work was done by a financial edict, that is, by the establishment of a method of taxation. the guilds themselves encouraged these calls on their funds; indeed, in 1636, when france was in danger of invasion, they offered their wealth and their services for the defence of the kingdom. the second means, which consisted in creating privileges for which the guilds paid and by which the king's coffers were filled, was invented by louis xi., who in 1461 instituted _letters of mastership_, which exempted those who bought them from the examination of capability and the expenses which the ordinary reception entailed. soon the kings introduced irregularities into the masters' guilds on every possible occasion.[123] the blow could not miss its aim. if none were found to take these licences, the guilds hastened to buy them up to prevent the intrusion of new competitors. in vain they attempted to protest; the procedure became habitual and legal. the great ordinance of 1581 stated that the king would dispose of three letters of mastership in every town and every craft. this led to a third procedure. the guild was vulnerable at many points, in its revenues and in its autonomy, as well as in its monopolies. if a pretence was made of attacking its weak spots, it would pay in order to be spared. it clung to the right of electing its own officers. now francis i. had already introduced among them royal officers who had naturally bought their office. at the end of the seventeenth century the crown, being short of money, renewed this expedient on a large scale. in 1691 it declared its intention of replacing all the officers and syndics by agents of its own nomination, and the guilds had immediately to raise three hundred thousand pounds to avert the calamity which threatened them. it was thus that the jews and lombards had formerly liberated themselves. in 1694 the king took it into his head to institute auditors and examiners to control their accounts; another sacrifice of four hundred thousand pounds was demanded before these were removed. in this way from year to year posts were created and bought up. in 1711 the pressure brought to bear was even stronger and more direct; the admission of new masters was forbidden, and they were created by royal authority without the assent of the guilds. the guilds gave everything that was demanded of them, everything at least that was in their power; they borrowed, got into debt, became involved and were on the verge of bankruptcy; just as the communes had formerly succumbed under the weight of the too heavy burdens imposed on them by the crown. (_c_) the crown was not always actuated by such personally interested motives; it sometimes happened that it was moved by nobler inspirations in its relations with the craft guilds, and studied the general interest when it restricted their exorbitant privileges. in order to develop public assistance with little expense, those who participated in works of charity were recompensed by being exonerated from corporate obligations. in 1553 an edict conferred mastership on all craftsmen who consented to teach their craft to the children of the hospital of the trinity, and the hospital itself thus became a factory working against the guilds. several hospitals were in a similar position. in the seventeenth century, however, it was with a different aim,--the development of national industry,--that the crown deliberately created factories not under guild rule. henry iv., in order to naturalize in france the silk industry, which diverted from the kingdom seven to eight thousand gold crowns annually, planted mulberry trees, and brought in italian workmen on whom he lavished money and monopolies, and who were exempted from taxation, in order that they might teach the art of weaving these valuable stuffs. in 1607 he installed, in the great gallery at the louvre, a colony of foreign craftsmen--a sort of industrial school of art where apprentices were trained--who might establish themselves anywhere in the kingdom without waiting to become masters. he thus launched the industry of luxury and attempted to organize, over the heads of the guilds, that which was most distasteful to them,--innovation, while their domain was still further restricted by the special conditions granted to merchants who followed the court and became tradesmen by appointment to princes and to the most brilliant of the nobility. colbert built up into a system what henry iv. had practised, and great factories rose at his command. these were of two kinds: first, _royal factories_ properly so called--state establishments, in which all expenses were borne by the treasury; the director was nominated by the king, and the privilege which they enjoyed was in perpetuity (the soap works of beauvais, aubusson, the naval workshops in the ports, etc.). others, also called "royal factories," were, in spite of this ambiguous name, private enterprises; they enjoyed important privileges, such as exemption from taxes, subsidies, or titles of nobility for those who directed them; but they were only temporary, and the company, with a private individual at its head, was worked at its own risk and peril. i will only quote one example, the cloth factory of the van robais at abbeville. no matter what their methods of administration, for the guilds they were so many formidable competitors, and it is easy to imagine the futile complaints and remonstrances of which they were the object. (_d_) we have described in detail the policy of the french crown with regard to the craft guilds, partly because this book is written in france and for the french, but also because it developed with remarkable logic and continuity. in neighbouring countries, however, what happened was, if not exactly the same, at least similar. in england, when we study the encroachments of the central authority, we find that, in spite of the commons, who represented the commercial class, the kings authorized foreign merchants to reside in the ports where originally they had to sell their cargoes wholesale within forty days, and that in 1335 they were allowed to trade freely throughout the kingdom.[124] we find three parliaments in turn making laws to impose certain industrial methods on the whole country, and many acts of legislation are to be found regulating "the size and weight of pieces of stuff, the methods of stretching and dyeing, the preparation of wool by means of certain ingredients the use of which was allowed or forbidden, the finishing of cloth, folding and packing, etc."[125] a whole army of officials was needed to see that these complicated laws,--which from being guild laws became national laws,--were not broken. in 1563 the statute of labourers codified in this way, in the name of the state, rules for apprenticeship and for other matters which had hitherto been in force among the craft guilds. at florence, from the year 1580, under the rule of the medicis, who had become sovereign princes, the statutes of the guild of silk or por santa maria,--hitherto the most important guild,--were reconstituted, and governors, whose jurisdiction extended over the whole of tuscany, were set up beside the consuls. these were still elected by the masters, but if one of the chosen magistrates were not approved (_la grazia_) by his serene highness, that was enough to disqualify him. from this time no subject could be brought up for debate in the assemblies of the _arte_ unless it had first been submitted to the said serene highness, who could either allow it to be introduced or could stop its passage.[126] in 1583 his highness took upon himself to unite two ancient guilds (fabbricanti and por san piero); he had the seal of the new guild remade, and the statutes, which even fixed the salaries of the officers, reconstituted. by degrees the consuls ceased to be chosen from _arti_ over which they nominally presided; they became personages who assumed honorary titles, and the actual power was in the hands of "deputies" (to-day we should call them delegates) nominated by the prince;[127] the organization of crafts became purely bureaucratic and the ancient _calimala_ a mere charitable body. wherever tribunals and chambers of commerce or technical schools were formed, wherever foreign craftsmen were called in and welcomed, there it may be said that the doom of the guilds was sealed. chapter vii internal causes of decay the guilds could only have been successful in their resistance to all these menaces if they had possessed plasticity, flexibility in adapting themselves, a desire for reformation, an eagerness to fall in with every new demand society might make, a spirit of continuity, unity, and justice,--in fact, such a combination of strong and great qualities as is rarely to be met with in the history of human institutions. we shall find that, instead of this, they allowed their inherent faults and failings, which we have already discovered in germ, to develop at the very height of their prosperity. it will be seen at a glance that three things grew up in their midst: _a lack of solidarity between those who occupied the various degrees of the hierarchy_; _divisions between the different craft guilds_; _and a narrow traditionalism which could not even ensure the good quality of products_. let us trace the disastrous effects of these three dissolvent forces. i. _division in the heart of the guilds._--(_a_) in principle there existed in the guild a hierarchy which justified its own existence. it was founded on age and election. on the one hand, an inequality which time corrected every day and finally did away with. adolescence was the age of apprenticeship; early manhood that of the journeyman; maturity that of mastership; and a man's earnings, independence, and power increased not only with the years, but according to his talent and capabilities. on the other hand--and here we have a still more provisional inequality--the elected officers received for a few months only, a power which they exercised under strict control, and then went modestly back into the ranks. this order of things, however, was soon upset by the growing domination of hereditary power and of wealth. the masters, anxious to secure a life of ease for their posterity, and filled with a sort of dynastic ambition, made the acquisition of mastership more and more difficult for those who had not the good luck to be their sons, nephews, or sons-in-law. even in the middle ages they had given way to the influence of domestic affection, but, as modern times draw nearer, the circle of the privileged narrows. those who were connected with the family by any tie received all the favours; periods of apprenticeship, rights and expenses of admissions, were reduced or done away with; technical proofs of ability degenerated into a simple formality which could be passed through at home. for every one else, old obligations were not only maintained but added to; expenses increased to such an extent that in france the crown intervened more than once to prevent their rise;[128] crying injustices served as a pretext for the great ordinance of 1581; candidates were taken advantage of and made to give banquets, even when they had been refused admission; the tests became more and more complicated, cost more and more, and were often conducted with revolting partiality. as if this were not enough, the guilds arbitrarily reduced the number of masterships, some of them refusing to admit new masters for ten years, while others definitely decided only to admit the sons of masters. from the sixteenth century, the butchers in paris, poitiers, and other places quite frankly decreed that mastership was to be hereditary among them. the same narrowing down applied to the attainment of magistracies. the duties of wardens and officers tended to be perpetuated in certain families: the electoral lists were weeded out in such a way as only to include the oldest masters. sometimes even the officers nominated their successors, and this gave them the opportunity of forming a permanent oligarchy which divided the honours among its members. one step more in the same direction would have been enough to make them in turn hereditary. the influence of money was combined with this family favouritism, counteracting it at times, but usually backing it up. none could be master unless he were rich, for the cost of admission, in the eighteenth century in france, rose to 1500 and 1800 francs. at the end of the seventeenth century, in the same country, the guilds which were in debt themselves sold letters of mastership to the highest bidder or contracted debts with their richest members, and even put up the wardenships for sale. (_b_) these measures, which, through the fault of the guilds themselves, falsified the normal action of their statutes, were accompanied by an increasingly strict subjection of inferiors to superiors. the journeymen were treated with growing severity. not only were they forbidden as heretofore to set up for themselves, but their condition was certainly worse in the seventeenth century than in the thirteenth. the working day, which averaged twelve hours, was prolonged to sixteen during the lighter months. holidays, reduced in number by the reformation, were in turn reduced by the catholics. la fontaine's cobbler, who worked on his own account, complained of m. le curã© who de quelque nouveau saint charge toujours son prã´ne. but the journeyman, who had no reason to dislike so many holidays; was not pleased to find their number decreasing in the following century. the increase in the nominal wages was not enough to compensate for the rise in the price of provisions and rent; the value of gold and silver had gone down considerably since the influx of precious metals which the new world had poured over europe. more than this, at the very time when cheap labour was increasing through the employment of peasants, women, and children, the jealous persistence of the masters in barring entrance into the higher grade to those among their workmen who possessed the necessary capabilities made the price of hired labour fall still lower. _compagnonnage_ acted as a check on these causes of depression, but it was quite insufficient, and was hampered in many ways. this ever-deepening separation between masters and journeymen was followed by separations between the masters themselves. in certain guilds they became divided into the _young_, _modern_, _old_, and _bachelor masters_--these last ex-officers,--each section possessing different rights. the officers abused their rights to visit, search, seize, and fine; the regulations were so difficult to carry out literally, that it was always possible to discover some weak point in them by means of which a rival could be annoyed. money could also be made at his expense if the delinquent would and could pay to be let off. the officers thus created a monopoly within a monopoly--and, if we may judge by the enquiries and lawsuits to which it gave rise,[129] an extremely profitable monopoly. in 1684 the officers of the cloth-of-gold and silk workers were convicted of having taken â£72 for authorizing a breach of the rules. it may well be imagined what a source of angry discontent were those breaches of trust, and it will be seen to what an extent the guild system had been discredited by the very persons whose mission it was to see it loyally carried out. 2. _division between the craft guilds._--one is sometimes tempted to say that the guild system had no worse enemies than the guilds themselves, so much bitterness did they display in their quarrels and recriminations. town fought with town, and in spite of the efforts made by the central authority to unite them they had no idea whatever of agreeing or combining among themselves. every one has heard of the interminable disputes which dragged on between the hanses of paris and rouen concerning the navigation of the seine.[130] each had, within its own region, the monopoly of the transport industry, one from the bridge of charenton to that of nantes, the other, from the latter point to the mouth of the river. the fight between the two powerful companies lasted several hundred years, till at last the day arrived when the two monopolies were impartially suppressed by the crown. in each town, as the line drawn between two crafts was often vague and purely conventional, the guilds were more rivals than allied neighbours. lawsuits resulted which, on account of their length and the expense of legal proceedings, were absolutely ruinous to both parties. they are mentioned at poitiers, which was at law for a century.[131] at paris, the lawsuit between the wine-merchants and the six guilds lasted a hundred and fifty years. the founders within a few years[132] entered into actions "against the edge-tool makers to prevent them from making fire-dogs; against the needle and awl makers to contest their right of selling thimbles other than those of paris; against the gilders to claim from them the exclusive right of founding, working up, and repairing copper goods; against the makers of weights and measures to claim equal rights with them in selling half-pound weights;[133] against the pin-makers, makers of kitchen utensils, button-makers, and sculptors." in england, the bow-makers might not make arrows, and the right was reserved to a special class of arrow-makers. legal expenses for the paris guilds alone amounted to nearly a thousand a year towards the middle of the eighteenth century. from a sense of _esprit de corps_, however, they persisted in wasting their substance, to the benefit of the legal profession which made enormous profits, and they defied royal edicts which attempted to restrain their zeal in litigation. they were far from putting into practice the motto of the six guilds, _vincit concordia fratrum_; far from realizing that solidarity which was the very object of the guild system. 3. _vexatious regulations._--the guilds were not only jealous of each other but also devoid of economic initiative. this was on account of the privileges they held. as each one possessed a monopoly, they were inclined to go to sleep in the little closed domain which belonged to them. how could they be expected to go in search of improvements, when they were so slow in adopting them? st. routine was their common patron. the application of a new method might promise larger profits or lessen the cost of production; but it was certain to entail expense, risk, and effort. it seemed to them easier to shut themselves behind a wall like the great wall of china. every innovation encountered their determined opposition. a few instances chosen from among a thousand will suffice to prove their obstinate conservatism. i will take one from great britain.[134] "in 1765, on the eve of those great inventions which were entirely to transform working appliances, it was forbidden, under penalty of a fine, to substitute metal carders for the teazles still in use in the greater number of the branches of the textile industry." i will take two other instances from france; at poitiers[135] the cap-makers greeted the advent of loom-made stockings with marked disfavour, and at paris the disputes between erard, the maker of clavecins, and the musical-instrument makers are well known. this exaggerated respect for tradition was also the result of the change which had taken place in the internal government of the guilds. their direction had passed into the hands of the old members, who, no doubt, possessed the experience of age, but had also that fear of everything new so common to those of advanced years. like so many other closed and static bodies, the guilds were faithful to the past, hostile to the future, and were to find themselves without resources and defenceless when they had to meet the cold but tonic breath of that competition, which is no doubt cruel for the weak and death to ill-timed enterprise, but which is also stimulating to human activity and an encouragement to the progress of industrial and commercial technique. would that their tyrannical regulations had succeeded in guaranteeing honest exchange and good quality of production! in this respect, however, they no longer exercised the least control. antoine de montchrestien in the time of henry iv. denounced the deceptions of commerce and industry.[136] in england from the fourteenth century damp spices, second-hand furs, and sheep-skins passing as buck-skin were on the market, and in the woollen trade the principle arose that it is for the buyer to take his own precautions.[137] henceforth the statutes were broken by the very people who had made them and sworn to keep them. men were found practising several professions, cornering raw materials and carrying on clandestine sales below the fixed tariffs; illegal practices for securing clients or for enticing away a colleague's workmen became common. over and over again the officers and wardens of a craft had to inflict severe punishments, but in many cases they were themselves guilty supervisors in need of supervision! their frauds often merited the condemnation they received. thus, through their own failings, quite as much as through the action of unfavourable surroundings, the guild system dwindled away, till, near the end of the seventeenth century, it was little more than one of those worn-out institutions which live on from force of habit; institutions which one hesitates to help in destroying, because it is difficult to know how they can be replaced, but so weak and tottering that they are at the mercy of the first shock. the eighteenth century was to give them their _coup de grã¢ce_. chapter viii the death of the guilds 1. _their suppression in european countries._--(_a_) the eighteenth century, the first half of which was an age of analysis, criticism, and social satire, was in its second half a time of innovation and invention, bold in its theory and practice, eager to correct and reform social organization in accordance with an ideal of justice born of reason. it was therefore both destructive and constructive. in its first years it saw the beginning of a new economic phase. a revolution, as serious as that caused by the discovery of america and the sea-route to the indies, began to operate in the world. as usual, it was commerce which, by its vast extension, broke the bounds within which society had been circumscribed. it was conscious of its importance and dignity. voltaire sang the praises of the merchant "who enriched the country, and from his office gives orders to surata and cairo, and contributes to the happiness of the world." sedaine, in the _philosophe sans le savoir_, calls the merchant "the man of universe," and compares the traders to so many "threads of silk which bind together the nations and lead them back to peace by the needs of commerce." in 1760 turgot proposed to ennoble the great traders, and great lords were not above going into business. the duke of la force was a wholesale grocer. on the sea there was the continual coming and going of vessels which ploughed the oceans, ransacked the archipelagoes, and opened up yet another continent, australia, to european conquest: on land, improved means of communication and transport trebled the passenger and goods traffic. england at that time had her "canal fever": in france the wonderful network of roads was the admiration of all strangers. in all civilized nations the enterprise of banks, bourses, great companies and chambers of commerce resulted in such a circulation of money and boldness of enterprise as had never been seen. all this necessitated an intensity of production hitherto unknown, and the invention of new methods. it was now necessary to create and supply the demands of consumers who were no longer confined to the limits of a state, however large it might be, but scattered over the face of the globe; who no longer numbered a few hundred thousands, but amounted to dozens or hundreds of millions. in short, markets began to expand to the very ends of the earth, and the period of international economics set in. in this commercial expansion, european capitalism played the chief part, and, in europe, england held the chief place. mistress of the sea and of a colonial empire of which india and north america were the most valuable possessions, she became enormously rich; france and holland followed, but some distance behind. we already know the natural tendencies of "great" commerce: it dislikes all barriers and hindrances to its activity. it always had been and was once more inimical to the system of the closed market so dear to the small craft guilds. its ideal was free trade. so true is this that in france, in 1654,[138] the six guilds strongly protested against the taxes which struck at the importation of goods made outside the kingdom; moreover the liberal movement against the guilds emanated from the merchant aristocracy, and gournay, its exponent in france, held the title of director of commerce. "great" industry developed with unprecedented strength under the same impetus. the aged tree, in which the sap was still rising, suddenly put forth vigorous branches. in england, engineering and coal-mining are prime necessaries to its life, and the cotton industry imported from the indies attracted many thousands of workers in a few years and kept them permanently employed. this industrial revolution took place both in those vast enterprises in which the ancient hierarchy of apprentices, journeymen, and masters became meaningless--since a handful of masters possessed the capital and appliances, while the mass of workmen possessed nothing:--and in those new enterprises which, like the manufacture of cotton fabrics, owed to their recent origin the fact that they had never been under the old guild system. the guilds themselves could not but suffer from the extraordinary growth which took place beside but outside their system. three forces in especial worked against them--three forces which led to invention, to the transformation of technique, and so to the overthrow of traditional rules: these were, the desire to save labour--a desire which dominates all human activity,--science, and fashion. (_b_) at first, masters and workmen were agreed on one point--the reduction of effort which was imposed on them, and which meant reduction of expenses for the former, and reduction of labour for the latter. workmen and workwomen had suffered from the imperfection of the tools they had used, and from the craft which they carried on; for generations they had contracted diseases and infirmities which were a trade-mark; the silk workers of lyons for instance were recognized by their bent knees. having seen their parents and grandparents die in hospital, tired and worn out before their time, they eagerly sought for means whereby they could save themselves, their children, and their comrades, from dangerous and exhausting work. they thought out and tried ingenious methods for lightening their tasks. the first inventors of improvements were thus workers, familiar with the machines which were their daily companions. from the time when the cotton industry became mechanical in england we can follow the rivalry--the struggle for speed which for half a century went on between spinning and weaving, each in turn getting ahead of and then being passed by the other;[139] it was a duel between inventors who were simple workmen and happened to be mechanics. in france, vaucanson and jacquard did the same thing for silk in lyons, where labour was less regulated than elsewhere. they were encouraged and led by their masters and sometimes by the state; but they were unfortunate in unexpectedly encountering the hostility of the silk workers whom they thought to help. this was because (and there is nothing which more clearly demonstrates the faults in the organization of labour) the introduction of all new machinery, while it operates in favour of the master by advancing the speed of production, throws on the streets a certain number of workmen who are no longer wanted, and who, while waiting for increased production to give them back their means of livelihood, fall a prey to famine and misery. montesquieu wrote on this subject:[140] "if an article is of a fairly low price, and one which equally suits him who buys it and the workman who has made it, machines which would simplify its manufacture, that is to say diminish the number of workmen, would be injurious; and if water-mills were not everywhere established, i should not believe them to be as useful as people say, because they throw innumerable hands out of work...." this explains the curious spectacle offered by the world of labour in the eighteenth century; the masters in "great" industry, like the wholesale traders, were the revolutionaries; their workmen, like the guilds, were the reactionaries. (_c_) science, however, was not long in coming to the rescue of the inventors who had risen from the working class. the scientists, whose function it is to increase human knowledge and the power of men over nature, gave proof in their turn of creative imagination; they captured and tamed hitherto unused or rebel forces: steam, subdued and enslaved, became the magician which began by giving movement to bands, wheels, hands of steel and iron, carriages and boats, and ended by carrying on every sort of craft. it could spin, weave, screw, rivet, plane, full, lift up, saw, cut off, glean, thresh corn, etc. chemistry and physics were by no means inferior to mechanical science; they composed and decomposed bodies, transformed and melted them one into another, created new ones by bold combinations, produced heat, light, and energy. what weight had the old regulations in view of this transformation of methods and appliances? who could uphold them? the guilds in defending them were like men with spades who should try to stop a train going at full speed. (_d_) fashion acts in the same manner, for the word is synonymous with change. it is a power in every country, but particularly where there is smart, worldly society. the guilds learnt this to their cost in a matter which was the talk of the court for years. in france an edict, inspired by them, had prohibited the use of printed cottons which came from india. they might be seized anywhere, even on people who were wearing them. but it was an absurd notion to try to check by force the changes of taste, when women, who love novelty in dress as much as they often do in matters of belief and custom, took it into their heads to wear a material which pleased them! the marquise of nesles appeared openly in the gardens of the tuileries, dressed in indian cotton. they dared not arrest her! other court ladies did as she had done, and, after a long struggle, printed cottons won the day; they were installed at the very gates of paris, and made the fortune of oberkampf their manufacturer, and were well known under the name of "toiles de jouy"! (_e_) while the defences behind which the guilds had taken refuge were thus battered down, a crusade against them was begun by public opinion. economists and philosophers united in attacking their principles in the name of liberty and equality, two ideas which roused much enthusiasm in the world at that time. the guilds were denounced as opposed to the general interest of producers in that they stood for privilege and exclusiveness and prevented numbers of people, who could neither enter them nor set up beside them, from earning an honest livelihood. they were condemned as being contrary to the general interests of consumers; for, burdened with enormous debts, wasting their money in festivals, feasts, and legal expenses, condemned to laborious methods of manufacture through their inability to improve them, they were yet able by means of their monopolies to keep up prices and to make unduly large profits, without even being capable of satisfying their clients if they expressed the smallest desire to have something out of the ordinary. the physiocrats had another grievance against the guilds: they were opposed to them because they diverted capital from the cultivation of the land, in which, according to them, it would have been used to much greater advantage. by degrees, among the two peoples which led the european thought of the time--great britain and france,--these accusations were condensed into a formula which was the death-warrant of the guilds: _laissez-faire! laissez-passer!_ at edinburgh in 1776 adam smith's famous work appeared, and was looked on as the gospel of the new doctrine. in 1775 there appeared in paris a posthumous work by president bigot of sainte-croix, entitled _an essay on the freedom of commerce and industry_. 2. it was in england, the country in which regulation was then weakest and where it had not touched great cities like manchester and birmingham,[141] where "great" commerce and "great" industry made the strongest and most rapid advances, that these theories most quickly triumphed, born as they were of surrounding realities. but, in accordance with the english custom, there was no violent rupture with the past, no solemn repudiation of theories hitherto followed, no complete and sudden abolition of the guild system. the change in economic organization came by a series of small local and partial measures. the statute of labourers had in 1563 unified and codified the rules of the middle ages; these were not wholly repealed, but, in 1728,[142] the master hat-makers, dyers, and cotton printers demanded of parliament (and obtained their demand fifty years later) that they should be exempt from obeying the rules as to the number of apprentices, who might be replaced by men hands. in 1753 the statutes of the stocking-makers were abolished as "injurious and vexatious to the manufacturers" and "hurtful to the trade," as "against all reason and opposed to the liberty of english subjects." in vain the workers sometimes united with the small masters, and sought behind these crumbling shelters protection against the ills inflicted on them by the development of "great" industry and of machinery; in vain they hoped for the application of the law which entrusted to the justices of the peace the duty of fixing their wages; in vain they made enormous sacrifices to get their rights established in legal documents.[143] from the year 1756 the weavers of napery were abandoned to their fate by the house of commons. after a period of hesitation and self-contradiction, "governmental nihilism" became under similar circumstances the policy of parliament. but it was still more than half a century before the statute of 1563, which had survived from a former age, disappeared under the blows struck at it by the "great" tradesmen; it was suspended, then abolished for the wool industry in 1809, and finally done away with in 1814. almost at the same date, in 1813, the right of fixing the wages of labour was taken away from justices of the peace. of the economic legislation of the middle ages, there still remained the laws which prohibited workers from forming any sort of combination, and decided that in every dispute the word of a master should be accepted before that of a servant; but of the guilds nothing was left but atrophied and lifeless bodies, which were little more than memories, or names often given to what were far from being professional associations. in france, where there is a love of unity, logic, and harmony, things developed differently. guild monopolies continued, it is true, by means of bribery; but their domain was narrowed by the creation of the sã¨vres factory and the royal printing press, and by the working of many mines at the expense of the state. in 1762 all industrial privileges were limited to fifteen years, a serious menace directed against privileges which had been held to be perpetual. in the same year the freedom of rural industry was proclaimed; in 1763 that of the leather trade, and in 1765 that of wholesale trade for commons as well as nobles. the corn trade, in spite of the fear of monopoly, profited by a similar liberty for a short time (1763). simultaneously, the guilds were stripped, and their doors thrown open. in 1755 it was decided that foreign journeymen might be hired in every town in the kingdom except paris, lyons, lille, and rouen. in 1767 the doors were opened wide to foreigners and jews--competitors as much hated as feared. in the same year the invasion was completed by a large number of letters of mastership which gave every craft in paris twelve new masters, and every craft in the provinces from eight to two, while the purchase of these licences by the six guilds was not authorized even if a larger sum were offered. monopoly was therefore extended, not destroyed. but such a solution was merely a compromise, and things developed in the direction of suppression pure and simple. it was turgot, as every one knows, who took upon himself to do away with wardenships and masterships. a disciple of both gournay and quesnay, he condemned them in the name of industry and agriculture, and in the interests of consumers and producers. the famous edict of march 1776, which he signed as minister of louis xvi., declared that they were abolished throughout the kingdom with four exceptions: the _wig-makers_, who held posts sold to them by the state itself; the _printer-booksellers_, the supervision of whom was kept by the authorities for political reasons; the _goldsmiths_, because the sale of precious metals was under special legislation; and the _apothecaries_, as the control of their trade was considered necessary for public health. the property of the guilds was sold and the proceeds, together with the funds in hand, were used for wiping out their debts. the confraternities were done away with at the same time, and their wealth handed over to the bishops. all associations of masters or journeymen were prohibited. such an edict, completely revolutionizing the organization of labour, could not pass without obstruction and resistance. the parlement, as defender of the ancient traditions of france, only registered it under protest and at the express wish of the king; the six guilds were defended by the writings of a man whose name will for ever have a sinister sound--dr. guillotin. the unrest was intense; the freedom of the corn trade served as a pretext, if not a real cause, for riots known as the "flour war." turgot had made a st. bartholomew of privileges, therefore all the privileged combined against him. the king said to him, "only you and i love the people, m. turgot." some days after, the king dismissed him, and, on august 28, the edict was repealed. wardens and masters were reestablished, first in paris and a little later in the other towns. but so decayed a system as this could not suffer even the most passing effacement with impunity. at first it did not reappear in its entirety and the number of free crafts remained considerably larger. it could only live at all by reforming itself, so the rights and expenses of reception were reduced by half, two-thirds, or sometimes even three-quarters; kindred crafts were fused and the practice of several crafts at once authorized; women were admitted to mastership in men's communities and _vice versa_; foreigners, too, could now aspire to mastership. but the original narrowness persisted; a new inequality sprang up between _masters_ and _fellows_; the rules for maintaining internal discipline and the domestic authority of the employers over the workmen became, not less, but more rigorous; the journeymen were still forbidden to have common funds, to assemble without permission, or to be together more than three at a time; to carry arms, to concern themselves with the hiring of labour, to leave work unfinished, or to present themselves without a letter of discharge from their last master. a strike could always be punished as a desertion of work. a maximum wage was always fixed as well as the time allowed for the mid-day meal. the regulations for manufacture, however, became less strict; under necker's ministry, the manufacturer might choose whether he would conform to them or not. if he did, he had the right to have his goods stamped, and stuffs so made were distinguished by a special selvage; other products received the "stamp of freedom." the commercial treaty, concluded with england in 1786, severely tried the system already so weakened. the guilds suddenly found themselves exposed at many points to foreign competition, and complained bitterly when the convocation of the states-general gave france the opportunity of expressing her opinion, along with other more important subjects, on the existence of the guilds. the debate reports of 1789 betray a certain indecision on the matter; the two privileged classes--nobles and clergy--when they were not indifferent to the whole question, leant towards suppression; the third estate--for the election of which the small crafts had not received equal treatment with "great" commerce, the liberal professions, and the rich bourgeoisie--were divided almost equally, one half favouring the abolition, the other the reformation, which implied the retention, of the system. apparently at first the latter carried the day. on the night of august 4, 1789, the reformation of masterships was one of the numerous motions voted with enthusiasm. but less than two years later, in march 1791, in a bill for the taxation of licences, the mover, dallard, had the following article (number 8), inserted: from april 1 next, inclusive, every citizen will be free to carry on whatever profession or trade seems good to him, after having procured and paid for a licence. this meant the end of masterships and wardenships. an indemnity was to be allowed the masters for the money they had spent, and to the wigmakers and to the barbers for the posts they had bought. with no fuss, almost without discussion, and without finding any one to defend them in the assembly, the guilds ceased to be after an existence which had lasted for many centuries. in june of the same year, a new law was destined to stifle any inclination they might have shown to come to life again. the pretext given for condemning them to their fate was the formation of societies of workers with the object of raising wages. chapelier, affirming that it was the duty of the state to assist the infirm and find work for those who needed it in order to live, protested against every association which claimed to substitute a collective contract for the individual contract between master and workers.[144] article 2 of the law in question reads: citizens of the same condition or profession, middlemen, those who keep open shops, workmen and _compagnons_ of whatever art, may not, when they find themselves together, nominate president, secretary or syndic, keep registers, pass resolutions, make regulations for what they claim to be their common interests, or bind themselves by agreements leading to the concerted refusal or to the granting only at a certain price, of the help of their industry and labours. according to a phrase taken from a petition addressed by the master-builders to the municipality of paris, the above resolutions and agreements, if they ever happened to be made, had to be declared "unconstitutional, opposed to liberty and to the declaration of the rights of man"; the authors, instigators, and signatories of these acts or writings were to pay a fine of â£500 each, and to be deprived for a year of their rights of active citizenship. severer penalties were provided in all cases of threat and unlawful assembly. thus pure reaction, excessive and impracticable, set in against trade combination; compulsory isolation was established under the false name of freedom of work, and in consequence the weak were abandoned to the mercy of the strong, and the poor to the mercy of the rich; the individual, naked and unarmed, was put face to face with the individual armed at every point; in the economic domain a mere agglomeration was substituted for any kind of organization. but besides being the culminating point of a long evolution, this reaction was the starting-point of a new development which created the modern labour movement. we must next take a rapid survey of europe and see what was the fate of the guilds in other countries. in holland, where they had never been very strong, they counted for nothing after 1766. in tuscany, from 1759 to 1766, a great inquiry was held into the state of the _arti_, and following on the information obtained, the archduke peter-leopold brought about, by means of decrees, a reform which was revolutionary in character. on february 3, 1770, he abolished enrolment fees throughout the duchy, with the exception of two or three small territories like that of livurnia, and decided that, in order to ply a trade, it should be enough henceforth to be inscribed once and for all on a general register. in consideration of a fee of â£2 at most, a man might, if he wanted to, follow more than one calling or open several shops. the only exceptions were the doctors, apothecaries, and goldsmiths, who were still subject to special obligations, and silk manufacturers, who kept a few ancient privileges. on february 17 of that year all the guild tribunals were abolished and all their powers vested in a _chamber of commerce, arts, and manufactures_, which had not only legal rights but also the duty of watching over the economic interests of the country, encouraging and assisting poor craftsmen, and administering the estates formerly held by the guilds which had thus been wiped out at a stroke of the pen. the clauses are curious and confirm what we have said concerning the action of princes. the archduke expresses his wish that "such matters shall be regulated by a single authority, on fixed and uniform principles directed to the universal good of the state." the bakers were no longer compelled to make loaves of a fixed weight; the merchants were exempted from paying for weights and measures which they hardly ever used but which they were forced to possess.[145] the glorious guilds of florence had lived for centuries and were to leave their mark behind them for a long time to come; it was only in 1907 that the winding-up of the property which had belonged to the _arte della lana_ was concluded. in lombardy, from 1771 onwards, under the rule of the empress maria theresa, a similar reform took place; in 1786 it was sicily's turn; throughout the rest of italy, all that remained of the ancient guild system disappeared under the french domination and the napoleonic code. the same thing happened in belgium, where, after the decree of 17 brumaire, year iv., nothing was left but shadowy guilds, such as that of st. arnoldus at bruges, or the "nations" at antwerp.[146] in germany the guild system was more tenacious and was only to disappear, in certain states, when german unity was almost realized. the code of the confederation of northern germany declared for its abolition in all the countries under its jurisdiction. 3. the guilds, then, were long in dying, and in addition to a few survivals,[147] there were even some attempts made here and there to revive them during the nineteenth century. in france, from the days of the consulate and of the empire, professional guilds (notaries, lawyers, solicitors, law-court officers, stockbrokers, etc.) were formed and still exist. the practice of more than one profession--such as medicine, dispensing, printing--remained under the control of the public authority. butchers and bakers, under new regulations, remained in this state till 1858 and 1863. in 1805, three hundred wine-sellers demanded, without success, the restoration of the old craft guilds and of their own in particular. under the restoration, which undertook the task of restoring institutions which the storms of the revolution had destroyed, other petitions of the same nature found a few partisans in the "_chambre introuvable_" and in some of the general councils;[148] but although "the small" crafts were in favour of this return to the past, "great" trade, which had been hostile to wardenships and masterships, was strongly opposed to it. the chamber of commerce of paris and the bankers were among the first to fight and defeat these ideas. it is among catholics especially that such ideas have been awakened; inspired by sincere pity for the misery of the working classes who have been so long without protection, they have often been filled with the desire to create an organization for the propagation of social peace between masters and workers. during the reign of louis-philippe, buchez, villeneuve bargemont, la farelle, and buret tried to bring the guild idea to life again. in 1848 it publicly reappeared for a short time, when the provisional government received hundreds of deputations classed according to their trades, and louis blanc nominated, according to craft guilds, delegates for the commission of the luxembourg, and when _compagnonnage_ paraded its beribboned canes and splendid works of art in the processions of the republican festivals; but it was already modified; masters and workmen formed separate groups. more recently, in 1891, it has been advocated in eloquent but vague terms by pope leo xiii., and catholic circles, founded by m. de mun, have tried to put it into practice. but it has always encountered obstacles which have arrested its progress. first there have been disagreements between those who favour the idea. should the guild be optional or compulsory, open or closed? what share should masters and workmen take in it? should it aim only at mutual assistance, or should it be competent to act in disputes between members? on the one hand there were those who were afraid of reviving the tyrannical monopoly of the old wardenships and on the other those who were afraid of forming, without meaning to do so, the framework for a socialistic organization of labour. all this was enough to paralyse those who might have been willing to join. but there was an even greater difficulty; though some of the great employers, those of the val des bois for example, supported the cause, the working classes, not unreasonably, stood aloof, uneasy and defiant. they dreaded any sort of patronage in which the heads would bombard them with pious exhortations and hold up to them the dismal virtue of resignation; they remembered m. claudio jannet's confession that he looked to christianity "to solve the social question by inspiring masters with the spirit of justice and charity, and by making the less-favoured classes _accept their lot_." they could not forget that the holy father had written that the guilds should have "religion for their guide," and they thought they had a foretaste of the fate in store for them, in the statutes of association of the printer-bookseller-bookbinders of paris in the new model (1879): "_art._ iii. to belong a man must be a catholic. _art._ iv. must bind himself not to work, or employ another on sunday. _art._ v. to print no irreligious book." in short, they were afraid of putting themselves under the yoke of the confessional and of losing their liberty of thought, and they looked on an institution from which were excluded in advance all who did not hold a certificate of orthodoxy, as too much resembling the middle ages, and as an anachronism in a society where rights are equal for all citizens irrespective of religion. a few theorists[149] no doubt prided themselves on enlarging this narrow conception; but the compulsory guilds, open and federated, which they dreamed of instituting, were so different from the old guilds that there was really nothing in common except the name. it was in austria, in surroundings less cut off from the past than in france, that guilds more resembling the original type awoke to an appearance of life.[150] created by law in 1883, they have set before themselves some of the aims of the _arti_ of florence, viz. the safeguarding of the honour of the trade and, to this end, the regulation of apprenticeship; the foundation or assistance of institutions for technical instruction; the exaction of a preliminary examination from any one who wishes to set up as a craftsman or merchant; the buying of raw material at the expense of the community; the provision of arbitrators to settle trade differences, and the insurance of members against sickness, etc. they even try, as in old times, to secure the legal monopoly of a craft and to forbid hawking, etc. they remind one very much of what i have called the _capitalistic guilds_ of the middle ages, and those of great commerce and "great" industry, with the sole difference that they are compulsory for all who carry on the same trade. (see p. 28.) all the authority, in fact, is in the hands of the masters, and although they are reminded of their duties towards the workers, the latter are subordinate, can only present petitions, and are only allowed to decide as to the administration of benefit funds. it is more than doubtful whether this reproduction of the most hierarchical form of the ancient guilds has much chance of spreading at a time when ideas of equality have made such headway and when the working classes are strong enough to refuse meekly to submit to the conditions employers lay down. it must also be remembered that "great" industry, for and by whom this method was formerly designed, is excepted from austrian legislation, which forces it on the "small" trades, to which this renewal of the regulations of the old statutes seems to be a great hindrance. imitation of this system, which is itself only a more or less successful imitation, has so far not gone farther than hungary and germany (the _innungen_). in belgium, switzerland, and even in france, christian associations are to be found on the same model. they always include two groups which never assimilate; masters and workmen who have separate representation and pay unequal subscriptions. the principle is always charity, the devotion of one class to another, no doubt an honourable sentiment, but one with which is mingled a protective spirit it seems impossible to do away with. for pope leo xiii. himself, in his encyclical of may 16, 1891, states that, in civilized society, it is impossible that every one shall rise to the same level, and that, in consequence, there will always be rich and poor. "just as, in the human body, the members, in spite of their diversity, adapt themselves so marvellously to each other as to form a perfectly proportioned whole, which may be called symmetrical, so, in society, the _two classes_ are destined by nature to unite in harmony, and to maintain together a perfect balance." life and experience, however, would seem to prove the opposite. the only thing to be gained by these attempts to return to a time that has disappeared for ever is the combination of crafts--a necessity which seeks to-day, as it has always done, its legitimate satisfaction. but new methods of production and sale demand new forms of organization of sellers and producers, and have brought us to the system, evolved by those concerned, spontaneously, without prejudiced or preconceived theories, by the direct force of circumstances--the system of _trade unionism_, which has succeeded the guild system as the defender of trade interests. author's bibliography arte dei medici, speziali e merciai. 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(larose, 1893-1904. 3 vols. 8vo.) franklin. 1. la vie privã©e d'autrefois. comment on devenait patron. (paris, plon, 1889. 12mo.) 2. la vie privã©e d'autrefois. la cuisine. (paris, plon, 1888. 12mo.) germain-martin. 1. la grande industrie sous le rã¨gne de louis xiv. 2. la grande industrie sous le rã¨gne de louis xv. 3. les associations ouvriã¨res au xviii^e siã¨cle. (paris, arthur rousseau, 1899 and 1900. gr. 8vo.) godart (justin). l'ouvrier en soie (1st volume). (paris, arthur rousseau, 1899. 8vo.) hartmann (moritz). zur wirtschaftgeschichte italiens im fruher mittelalter. (gotha, 1904.) hauser (henri). 1. ouvriers du temps passã©. (paris, f. alcan, 1898. 8vo.) 2. les compagnonnages d'arts et mã©tiers ã  dijon aux xvii^e et xviii^e siã¨cles (with his pupils). (paris, a. picard et fils, 1907. 8vo.) 3. les pouvoirs publics et l'organisation du travail dans l'ancienne france. (revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1907-1908.) hayem (h.). domaines respectifs de l'association et de la sociã©tã©. (paris, arthur rousseau, 1907. 8vo.) lacroix (paul). moeurs, usages et costumes au moyen ã¢ge et ã  l'ã©poque de la renaissance. (paris, firmin-didot et c^ie, 1878. 8vo.) lamprecht. deutsche wirtschaftsleben im mittelalter. (leipzig, dã¼rr, 1886. 4 vols. 8vo.) la sorsa. gli statuti degli orefici e sellai fiorentini al principio del secolo xiv. (florence, 1901.) levasseur (ã�mile). histoire des classes ouvriã¨res et de l'industrie en france avant 1789. (2nd edition, 2 vols. 8vo. paris, arthur rousseau, 1901.) livre des mã©tiers (le). (ã�dition depping, paris, 1879.) luchaire (achille). les communes franã§aises ã  l'ã©poque des capã©tiens directs. (paris, hachette, 1890. 8vo.) martin-saint-lã�on (e.). 1. histoire des corporations de mã©tier. (paris, guillaumin & c^ie, 1897. 8vo.) 1. _bis._ second edition. (paris, f. alcan, 1909. 8vo.) 2. le compagnonnage. (paris, armand colin, 1901. 18mo.) michelet (jules). histoire de france. (ã�dition marpon et flammarion, paris, 1879.) misul. le arti fiorentine. la camera di commerzio. (florence, 1904. 8vo.) more, thomas. utopia. perrens (f. t.). histoire de florence. (paris, 6 vols. 8vo.) pigeonneau. histoire du commerce de la france. (2 vols. 8vo. paris, lã©opold cerf, 1887.) pirenne. histoire de belgique. (8vo. brussels, 1900.) renard (georges). 1. les corporations de florence au xiii^e siã¨cle. (revue du mois, september 1908.) 2. les banquiers florentins en france au xiii^e siã¨cle. (revue ã�conomique internationale, november 1908.) 3. la rã©volution sociale au xiv^e siã¨cle. (revue internationale de l'enseignement, january 1909.) richard (gaston). la femme dans l'histoire. (paris, o. doin et fils, 1909. 18mo.) rodocanachi. les corporations ouvriã¨res ã  rome depuis la chute de l'empire romain. (2 vols. in folio, paris, alf. picard et fils, 1893.) sand (george). le compagnon du tour de france, novel. schmoller. die strassburger tucherund weberzunft: urkunden und darstellung. (strasbourg, 1899.) solmi (arrigo). le assoziazioni in italia avanti le origini del comune. (modena, 1898.) tamassia (nino). chiesa e popolo. (modena, 1901.) vanderkindere. le siã¨cle des artevelde. (brussels, 1879. 8vo.) webb (beatrice and sidney). history of trade unionism. (london, longmans, green & co., 1911.) worms (ã�mile). histoire commerciale de la ligue hansã©atique. (paris, 1864. 8vo.) zeller (jules). histoire d'allemagne. (paris, perrin et c^ie. 8vo.) editor's bibliography of works in english *ashley (w. j.). an introduction to english economic history. 2 vols. part i., the middle ages. 1888. 5s. (especially chap. ii.); part ii. the end of the middle ages. 1893. 10s. 6d. (especially chaps. i.-iii.) surveys, historic and economic. 1900. 9s. o.p. *the economic organisation of england. 1914. 2s. 6d. philip and james van artevelde. o.p. brentano (l.). _see_ smith, toulmin. cunningham (w.). growth of english industry and commerce. 3 vols. 1903-5. gross (c.). the gild merchant. 2 vols. 1890. 24s. kropotkin (peter). mutual aid. 1902. 3s. 6d. lambert (rev. j. m.). two thousand years of gild life. 1891. 18s. lipson (e.). economic history of england. vol. i. black, 1915. 7s. 6d. penty (a. j.). old worlds for new. allen & unwin, 1917. 3s. 6d. rogers (j. e. thorold). six centuries of work and wages. 1890. 10s. 6d. (remainders 4s. 6d.). round (j. h.). the commune of london. 1899. salzmann (l. f.). english industries of the middle ages. 1913. 6s. 6d. smith (toulmin). english gilds, with an introduction by professor brentano (early english text society). staley (edgecombe). guilds of florence. *unwin (george). the gilds and companies of london. 1908. 7s. 6d. *industrial organisation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 1904. 7s. 6d. _printed by_ r. & r. clark, limited, _edinburgh_. footnotes: [1] _panetier_, one charged with the distribution of bread in big establishments. [2] _bouteillier_, an official for the inspection and superintendence of wine in a royal household. [3] a short study and a detailed bibliography of the origin of guilds will be found in m. martin-saint-lã©on's _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, book i., 2nd edition. we recommend it to the reader, but do not ourselves accept all the author's opinions. as, however, he chiefly gives the german, english, and french sources of information, we add a list of italian works, or works concerning italy, which deal with the same subject, classifying them according to the theories they adopt. the theory of the separate creation of each guild is defended by m. arrigo solmi (_le assoziazioni in italia avanti le origini del commune_, 1898), but since then the works and criticisms of messrs. robert davidsohn, alfred doren, hartmann, and bonolis have deprived his arguments of all that was strongest and most original in them. m. solmi, in an article in the _rivista italiana di sociologia_, ix. 1 (roma, 1905), entitled "sulla storia economica d'italia nel medio evo," himself recognized that the persistence of certain ancient institutions and the division of labour in the great royal or feudal domains appear to have played an important part in the organization of crafts. m. nino tamassia has specially emphasized, amongst other causes, the part played by the influence of religious congregations and fraternities. [4] the origin of the cities having been so different (see j. flach, _les origines de l'ancienne france_), the causes which predominate in each must have been equally diverse. [5] the _arte dei fabbri_, for instance, extended over all the suburbs of florence. [6] in france, for example, a long war was fought between the guilds and those whom they called _chambrelans_. [7] a similar organization existed at strasburg. the _zunft_ (guild) included several _antwerke_, see schmoller, _die strassburger tã¼cher und weberzunft urkunden und darstellung_. [8] r. davidsohn, _forschungen zur geschichte von florenz_. [9] a. doren, _entwicklung und organisation der florentiner zã¼nfte_; g. renard, _la rã©volution sociale au xiv^e siã¨cle_. [10] the following may be consulted on this subject: davidsohn, _forschungen zur geschichte von florenz_, vol. iii. p. 221; martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 277; fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. ii. pp. 170, 190, 201. [11] h. hauser, _ouvriers du temps passã©_, p. 40. [12] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, pp. 84, 86, 291; franklin, _la vie privã©e d'autrefois_, p. 78; fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. p. 309. [13] hauser, _ouvriers du temps passã©_, pp. 59-76; boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation en poitou, etc._, pp. 53, 64, 68; martã­n-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 89 ; fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. p. 268. [14] e. levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res et de l'industrie en france avant 1789_, pp. 1, 321; martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 117; fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 231, 245, 282. [15] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 121. [16] hauser, _ouvriers du temps passã©_, p. 62; fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 36, 220. [17] avenel, _histoire ã©conomique de la propriã©tã©, des salaires, des denrã©es et tous les prix en gã©nã©ral_, passim. [18] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation du travail en poitou, depuis le xi^me siã¨cle jusqu'ã  la rã©volution_, vol. ii. p. 150. [19] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, pp. 135, 291, 294. [20] vanderkindere, _le siã¨cle des artevelde_, p. 132; e. levasseur, vol. i. p. 315, note. [21] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 280. [22] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. p. 290. [23] quotation from beugnot's edition, p. 429. [24] _le livre des mã©tiers_, xxv. p. 65. [25] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 1, 245; e. levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res et de l'industrie en france avant 1789_, vol. i. p. 312. [26] consult the following for information concerning the legal and economic status of women: gaston richard, _les femmes dans l'histoire_, p. 282; hauser, _ouvriers du temps passã©_, pp. 142-160; fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 259-261, 277, 310, vol. ii. p. 204. [27] consult w. j. ashley's _economic history_, concerning _guildae_ and _hanses_. a bibliography will be found in vol. i. see also ã�mile worms. [28] _statutes of the arte di calimala_ (book ii. art. 23). [29] for information on this subject consult a. doren and davidsohn for florence; pirenne for flanders; schmoller and lamprecht for germany. [30] it is certain that in great states the statutes of the different towns were connected, and it is probable that they were so in the period preceding the formation of great states. [31] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, pp. 266 and 290; rodocanachi, _les corporations ouvriã¨res ã  rome depuis la chute de l'empire romain_, p. lix. [32] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. ii. p. 189. [33] _statutes of the calimala_, bk. ii. art. 35 and 44. [34] rodocanachi, _les corporations ouvriã¨res ã  rome depuis la chute de l'empire romain_. [35] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. ii. p. 59. [36] justin godart, _l'ouvrier en soie_, p. 88, note. [37] rodocanachi, p. xcii. [38] brisson, _histoire du travail et des travailleurs_, p. 23. [39] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 275. [40] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 1, 274. [41] _statuts de calimala._ [42] la sorsa, _gli statuti degli orefici e sellai fiorentini al principio del secolo xiv._ [43] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. ii. pp. 71, 149. [44] brisson, _histoire du travail et des travailleurs_, p. 22. [45] franklin, _la vie privã©e d'autrefois_, p. 25. [46] georges renard, _les banquiers florentins en france au xiii^me siã¨cle_. [47] paul lacroix, _moeurs, usages et costumes du moyen ã¢ge et ã  l'ã©poque de la renaissance_, pp. 234 and 430. [48] _statutes of the calimala_, bk. iii. art. 20-22. [49] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, pp. 11, 190-200. [50] levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res et de l'industrie en france avant 1789_, vol. i. p. 335. [51] brisson, _histoire du travail et des travailleurs_, p. 19; boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation de travail en poitou_, vol. i. p. 287. [52] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, pp. 271-274. [53] paul lacroix, _moeurs, usages et costumes au moyen ã¢ge et ã  l'ã©poque de la renaissance_, p. 317. [54] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. p. 113. [55] franklin, _la vie privã©e d'autrefois_, vol. i. pp. 66-67; rodocanachi, _les corporations ouvriã¨res ã  rome_, p. lxxxviii. [56] a. doren, _entwicklung und organisation der florentiner zã¼nfte_. [57] rodocanachi, _les corporations ouvriã¨res ã  rome depuis la chute de l'empire romain_, p. cxii. [58] franklin, _la vie privã©e d'autrefois_, p. 67. [59] _statutes of the arte dei medici, speziali e merciai_. [60] _statutes of the arte di calimala_. [61] charles dejob, _le marchand de vin dans les vieilles communes de l'italie_, p. 14. [62] see the statutes of the _arte di calimala_, and of the _arte di por santa maria_. [63] e. levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res et de l'industrie en france avant 1789_, vol. i. pp. 293-298. [64] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. p. 146. [65] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, pp. 273, 287. [66] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 40, 52, 93. [67] _ibid._ [68] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 89, 112. [69] consult rodocanachi and boissonnade on this subject. [70] rodocanachi, _les corporations ouvriã¨res ã  rome depuis la chute de l'empire romain_, p. xxv. [71] levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res et de l'industrie en france avant 1789_, vol. i. pp. 561. [72] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 110. [73] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation du travail en poitou_, etc., vol. ii. p. 276; bourgeois, _les mã©tiers de blois_, passim. [74] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. pp. 145, 250. [75] boissonnade, vol. ii. p. 276. [76] paul lacroix, _moeurs, usages, et costumes au moyen ã¢ge et ã  l'ã©poque de la renaissance_, p. 442. [77] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation en poitou_, etc., vol. ii. p. 293. [78] levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res et de l'industrie en france avant 1789_, vol. i. p. 343; boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation en poitou_, etc., vol. i. p. 172. [79] franklin, _la vie privã©e d'autrefois. la cuisine_, p. 230. [80] the word as here used must not be confused with its meaning in connection with the florentine guilds, see p. 8. [81] the _number_ of members composing a guild also contributed to its social status; but this was a factor of very much less importance. [82] ribot, _essai sur l'imagination crã©atrice_, p. 234; tarde, _psychologie ã©conomique_, bk. i. chap. v. â§â§ iv. v. [83] a. doren, _studien aus der florentiner wirthschaftgeschichte_. [84] levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res_, etc., vol. i. p. 343. [85] perrens, _histoire de florence_, vol. vi. chap. v. [86] the inhabitants of perpignan were classed in three _mains_ (major, middle, and minor). see drapã©. [87] ach. luchaire, _les communes franã§aises ã  l'ã©poque des capã©tiens directs_, pp. 207-215. [88] georges renard, _revue ã©conomique internationale_, jan. 1909, article entitled "la rã©volution sociale au xiv^e siã¨cle." [89] davidsohn, _forschungen zur geschichte von florenz_, vol. iii. [90] _livre des mã©tiers_, p. 1. [91] fagniez, _documents relatifs ã  l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en france_, vol. i. p. 75. [92] franklin, _la vie privã©e d'autrefois, comment on devenait patron_, p. 70; martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 275. [93] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation du travail en poitou_, etc., vol. ii. p. 250. [94] fagniez, vol. i. p. 115. [95] karl bã¼cher, _ã�tudes d'histoire et d'ã©conomie politique_, passim. [96] macaulay, _history of england_ (everyman), vol. i. p. 323. [97] germain-martin, _la grande industrie sous le rã¨gne de louis xiv_, p. 232. [98] e. levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res_, etc., vol. i. p. 590. [99] thomas more, _utopia_. [100] ashley. [101] andrã© liesse, _le travail_. [102] beatrice and sidney webb, _history of trade unionism_, p. 41. [103] macaulay, _history of england_ (everyman), vol. i. p. 292. [104] germain-martin, _la grande industrie sous le rã¨gne de louis xv_. [105] beatrice and sidney webb, _history of trade unionism_, p. 13. [106] page 24. their position was the same in the _arte della seta_. [107] macaulay, _history of england_ (everyman), vol. i. p. 323, note. [108] hauser, _ouvriers du temps passã©_, chap. x. [109] mantoux, _la rã©volution industrielle au xviii^me siã¨cle_, p. 55. [the song is quoted in full in j. burnley's _wool and wool-combing_, pp. 161 ff.--editor.] [110] mantoux, _la rã©volution industrielle au xviii^me siã¨cle_. [111] see levasseur, _histoire des classes ouvriã¨res_, etc., chap. vi.; hauser, _les compagnonnages d'arts et mã©tiers_, etc., p. 8 and _passim_; martin-saint-lã©on, _le compagnonnage_. [112] hauser, _les compagnonnage d'arts et mã©tiers ã  dijon au xvii^me et xviii^me siã¨cles_, p. 168. [113] du bellay; see also grã©vin, prologue to _la trã©soriã¨re_. [114] jules zeller, _histoire d'allemagne_. [115] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation du travail en poitou_, vol. ii. pp. 354-357. [116] germain-martin. [117] ashley. [118] fagniez, _corporations et syndicats_, p. 23. [119] quoted by michelet, _histoire de france_, vol. v. p. 312. [120] levasseur, vol. ii. p. 138. [121] j. bodin, _de la rã©publique_, bk. iii. chap. viii. [122] see boissonnade, vol. ii. pp. 360, 465; bourgeois, vol. ii. p. 243. the master saddlers of blois (1593) asked the king to grant them statutes "similar to those of tours and other free towns of this kingdom." [123] they even formed guilds, as, for instance, the dressmakers' guild, which owed its existence to colbert. [124] ashley, _economic history_, vol. ii. p. 13. [125] mantoux, _la rã©volution industrielle au xviii^me siã¨cle_, p. 65. [126] _cantini, legislazione toscana_, x. chap. xxix. and xxx. [127] misul, _le arti fiorentini_, passim. [128] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation du travail en poitou, depuis le xi^me siã¨cle jusqu'ã  la rã©volution_, vol. ii. p. 79. [129] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 348. [130] pigeonneau, _histoire du commerce de la france_, vol. i. p. 180. [131] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation du travail en poitou, depuis le xi^me siã¨cle jusqu'ã  la rã©volution_, vol. ii. p. 123. [132] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 358. [133] "poids de marc"; _marc_, ancient weight of eight ounces (larousse). [134] mantoux, _la rã©volution industrielle au xviii^me siã¨cle_, p. 67. [135] boissonnade, vol. ii. p. 430. [136] boissonnade, _essai sur l'organisation du travail en poitou_, etc., vol. ii. pp. 120, 488. [137] w. j. ashley. [138] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 312. [139] mantoux, _la rã©volution industrielle au xviii^me siã¨cle_, pp. 195-208. [140] montesquieu, bk. xxiii. chap. xv. [141] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, p. 523. [142] mantoux, _la rã©volution industrielle au xviii^me siã¨cle_, pp. 472, 487. [143] beatrice and sidney webb, _history of trade unionism_, p. 44. [144] for the whole of the preceding consult martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, pp. 511, 516; hayem, _domaines respectifs de l'association et de la sociã©tã©_, p. 23; jaurã¨s, _la constituante_, pp. 600-630. [145] misul, _le arti fiorentine; la camera di commerzio_. [146] e. vandervelde, _enquã©te sur les associations professionnelles d'artisans et ouvriers en belgique_, vol. i. [147] j. paul-boncour in _le fã©dã©ralisme ã©conomique_, p. 14, gives a list of the guilds which survive in france. [148] on this subject see martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, bk. vii.; and paul louis, _histoire du mouvement syndical en france_, p. 67. [149] martin-saint-lã©on, _histoire des corporations de mã©tier_, bk. vii. chap. iii., "the guilds of the future." [150] hubert-valleroux, les _associations ouvriã¨res et les associations patronales_, p. 130; altmann, _le rã©gime corporatif des mã©tiers en autriche et en allemagne au xix^me siã¨cle_. transcriber's note: every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible. italic text has been marked with _underscores_. letters preceded by a ^caret appeared as superscripts to the end of the word. oe ligatures have been expanded. [illustration: "he held up the shoe with great disfavor"--_page 138_] in the days of the guild by l. lamprey with four illustrations in color by florence gardiner and numerous line drawings by mabel hatt [illustration] new york frederick a. stokes company publishers _copyright, 1918, by_ frederick a. stokes company _all rights reserved including that of translation into foreign languages._ _printed in the united states of america_ _to_ my father henry phelps lamprey contents i page _the old road_ 1 the boy with the woolpack 3 how robert edrupt journeyed with the wool-merchants to london ii _the biographer_ 13 basil the scribe 15 how an irish monk in an english abbey came to stand before kings iii _venetian glass_ 27 the picture in the window 29 how alan of the abbey farms learned to make stained glass iv _troubadour's song_ 41 the grasshoppers' library 43 how ranulph le provençal ceased to be a minstrel and became a troubadour v _the wood-carver's vision_ 55 the box that quentin carved 57 how quentin of peronne learned his trade when a boy in amiens vi _the caged bouverel_ 69 at the sign of the gold finch 71 how guy, the goldsmith's apprentice, won the desire of his heart vii _up anchor_ 79 the venture of nicholas gay 81 how nicholas gay, the merchant's son, kept faith with a stranger and served the king viii _london bells_ 93 barbara, the little goose-girl 95 how barbara sold geese in the chepe and what fortune she found there ix _harper's song_ 105 richard's silver penny 107 how richard sold a web of russet and made the best of a bad bargain x _perfumer's song_ 119 mary lavender's garden 121 how mary lavender came to be of service to an exiled queen xi _pavement song_ 131 saint crispin's day 133 how crispin, the shoemaker's son, made a shoe for a little damsel, and new streets in london xii _concealed weapons_ 143 the lozenges of giovanni 144 how a milanese baker-boy and a paduan physician kept poison out of the king's dish xiii _a song of birds and beasts_ 157 a dyke in the danelaw 159 how david le saumond changed the course of an ancient nuisance xiv _london bridge_ 173 at bartlemy fair 175 how barty appleby went to the fair at smithfield and caught a miscreant xv _midsummer day in england_ 187 edwitha's little bowl 189 how edwitha found roman pottery in the field of a sussex farm xvi _song of the tapestry weavers_ 197 looms in minchen lane 199 how cornelys bat, the flemish weaver, befriended a black sheep and saved his wool xvii _the wishing carpet_ 211 the herbalist's brew 213 how tomaso, the physician of padua, found a cure for a weary soul xviii _the marionettes_ 225 the hurer's lodgers 229 how the poppet of joan, the daughter of the capmaker, went to court and kept a secret xix _armorer's song_ 241 dickon at the forge 243 how a sussex smith found the world come to him in the weald xx _the wander-years_ 255 the wings of the dragon 257 how padraig made irish wit a journeyman to florentine genius xxi _st. eloi's blessing_ 269 gold of byzantium 271 how guy of limoges taught the art of byzantium to wilfrid of sussex xxii _the watchword_ 281 cockatrice eggs 283 how tomaso the physician and basil the scribe held the keys of empire illustrations "he held up the shoe with great disfavor" (_in colors_) _frontispiece_ facing page "waiting for the wool-merchants" 4 "'some of us will live to see thomas of canterbury a saint of the church'" 21 "the medallion was a picture in colored glass" 36 "'upon my word, the race of wood-carvers has not yet come to an end'" 67 "'have you been here all this time?'" 86 "barbara knew exactly where to go" (_in colors_) 96 "'it is time to set him building for england'" 168 "'how beautiful it is!' he exclaimed" (_in colors_) 194 "tomaso seemed not to have seen her action" 216 "the marionettes" 224 "'it is better than the sketch,' he cried heartily" 246 "'and there goes what would seat the king of england on the throne of the cæsars,' quoth tomaso" (_in colors_) 284 the old road the horse-bells come a-tinkling by the shoulder of the down, the bell of bow is ringing as we ride to london town. o the breath of the wet salt marshes by romney port is sweet, but sweeter the thyme of the uplands under the horses' feet! it's far afield i'm faring, to the lands i do not know, for the merchant doth not prosper save he wander to and fro, yet though the foreign cities be stately and fair to see, it's an english home on an english down, and my own lass for me! in the days of the guild i the boy with the woolpack how robert edrupt journeyed with the wool-merchants to london in the reign of king henry ii., when as yet there were no factories, no railways or even coaches, no post-offices and no tea-tables in england, a boy sat on a hillside not far from salisbury plain, with a great bale of wool by his side. it was not wrapped in paper; it was packed close and very skillfully bound together with cords, lengthwise and crosswise, making a network of packthread all over it. the boy's name was robert edrupt, but in the tiny village where he was born he had always been called hob. he had been reared by his grandfather, a shepherd, and now the old shepherd was dead and he was going to seek his fortune. the old grandmother, dame lysbeth, was still alive, but there was not much left for her to live on. she had a few sheep and a little garden, chickens, a beehive, and one field; and she and her grandson had decided that he should take the wool, which was just ready for market when the sudden death of the shepherd took place, and ask the dealers when they came by if they would not take him with them to london. now he was waiting, as near the road as he could get, listening hard for the tinkle of their horse-bells around the shoulder of the down. the road would not really be called a road to-day. it was a track, trodden out about half way up the slope of the valley in some parts of it, and now and then running along the top of the long, low hills that have been called downs as long as the memory of man holds a trace of them. sometimes it would make a sharp twist to cross the shallows of a stream, for there were scarcely any bridges in the country. in some places it was wide enough for a regiment, and but faintly marked; in others it was bitten deep into the hillside and so narrow that three men could hardly have gone abreast upon it. but it did not need to be anything more than a trail, or bridle-path, because no wagons went that way,--only travelers afoot or a-horseback. at some seasons there would be wayfarers all along the road from early in the morning until sunset, and they would even be found camping by the wayside; at other times of the year one might walk for hours upon it and meet nobody at all. robert had been sitting where he was for about three hours; and he had walked between four and five miles, woolpack on shoulder, before he reached the road; he had risen before the sun did that morning. now he began to wonder if the wool-merchants had already gone by. it was late in the season, and if they had, there was hardly any hope of sending the wool to market that year. [illustration: "waiting for the wool-merchants"] but worry never worked aught, as the saying is, and people who take care of sheep seem to worry less than others; there are many things that they cannot change, and they are kept busy attending to their flocks. robert, who did not intend to be called hob any more, took from his pouch some coarse bread and cheese and began munching it, for by the sun it was the dinner-hour--nine o'clock. meanwhile he made sure that the silver penny in the corner of the pouch, which hung at his girdle and served him for a pocket, was safe. it was. it was about the size of a modern halfpenny and had a cross on one side. a penny such as this could be cut in quarters, and each piece passed as a coin. just as the last bit of bread and cheese vanished there came, from far away over the fern, the jingle-jink-jing of strings of bells on the necks of pack-horses. a few minutes later the shaggy head and neck of the leader came in sight. they were strong, not very big horses; and while they were not built for racing, they were quick walkers. they could travel over rough country at a very good pace, even when, as they now were, loaded heavily with packs of wool. robert stood up, his heart beating fast: he had never seen them so close before. the merchants were laughing and talking and seemed to be in a good humor, and he hoped very much that they would speak to him. "ho!" said the one who rode nearest to him, "here's another, as i live. did you grow out of the ground, and have you roots like the rest of them, bumpkin?" robert bowed; he was rather angry, but this was no time to answer back. "i have wool to sell, so please you," he said, "and--and--if you be in need of a horse-boy, i would work my passage to london." the man who had spoken frowned and pulled at his beard, but the leader, who had been talking to some one behind him, now turned his face toward robert. he was a kindly-looking, ruddy-cheeked old fellow, with eyes as sharp as the stars on a winter night that is clear. "hum!" he said genially. "who are you, and why are you so fond to go to london, young sheep-dog?" robert told his story, as short and straight as he could, for he could see that some of the merchants were impatient. this was only one pack of wool, and at the next market-town they would probably find enough to load all the rest of their train of horses, when they could push straight on to london and get their money. "if you desire to know further of what i say," the boy ended his speech, "the landlord of the woolpack will tell you that our fleeces are as fine and as heavy as any in the market, so please you, master." "hum!" the wool-merchant said again. "give him one of the spare nags, gib, and take up the pack, lad, for we must be getting on. what if i find thee a liar and send thee back from the inn, hey?" "if i be a liar, i will go," said robert joyfully, and he climbed on the great horse, and the whole company went trotting briskly onward. robert found in course of time, however, that when we have got what we want, it is not always what we like most heartily. he had been on a horse before, but had never ridden for any length of time, and riding all day long on the hard-paced pack-horses over hill and valley was no play. then, when they reached the town, and the merchants began to joke and trade with the shepherds who had brought in their wool for market-day, and all the people of the inn were bustling about getting supper, he had to help gib and jack, the horse-boys, to rub down the horses, take off their packs, and feed and water them. he nearly got into a terrible pickle for not knowing that you must not water a horse that has been traveling for hours until it has had at least half an hour to rest and cool off. when he finally did get his supper, a bowl of hot stew and some bread and cheese,--and extremely good it tasted,--it was time for bed. he and the other serving-lads had to sleep on the wool packs piled in the open courtyard of the inn, which was built in a hollow square,--two-story buildings and stables around the square court where the horses and baggage were left. this did not trouble robert, however. he had slept on the open hillside more than once, and it was a clear night; he could see arthur's wain shining among the other stars, and hear the horses, not far away, contentedly champing their grain. the next morning he woke up lame and weary, but that wore off after a time. nobody in the company paid attention to aching muscles; what was occupying the minds of the traffickers was the fear of getting the wool to london too late to secure their price for it. italian and flemish merchants had their agents there, buying up the fleeces from the great flocks of the abbeys, and master hardel had taken his company further west than usual, this year. no stop would be made after this, except to eat and sleep, for the horses were now loaded with all that they could carry. on the second night, it rained, and every one was wet,--not as wet as might be supposed, however, considering that no umbrellas and no rubber coats existed. each man wore instead of a hat a pointed hood, with a cape, the front turned back from his eyes. by folding the cape around him he could keep off the worst of the rain, for the cloth had a shaggy nap, and was close-woven as well. on legs and feet were long woolen hose which dried when the sun came out; and some had leathern tunics under their cloaks. it was rather jolly on the road, even in the rain. the dark-bearded man, who was called jeffrey, knew numberless tales and songs, and when he could turn a jest on any of the party he invariably did. no one took any especial notice of robert, except that the man called gib shifted as much of his own work on him as possible, and sometimes, when they were riding in the rear, grumbled viciously about the hard riding and small pay. there is usually one person of that sort in any company of travelers. robert minded neither the hard work nor gib's scolding. he was as strong as a young pony, and he was seeing the world, of which he had dreamed through many a long, thyme-scented day on the downs, with soft little noises of sheep cropping turf all about him as he lay. what london would be like he could not quite make out, for as yet he had seen no town of more than a thousand people. at last, near sunset, somebody riding ahead raised a shout and flung up his arm, and all knew that they were within sight of london--london, the greatest city in england, with more than a hundred churches inside its towered city wall. they pushed the horses hard, hoping to reach the new gate before eight o'clock, but it was of no use. they were still nearly a mile from the walls when the far sound of bells warned them that they were too late. they turned back and stayed their steps at an inn called the shepherd's bush, out on the road to the west country over which the drovers and the packmen came. a long pole over the door had on its end a bunch of green boughs and red berries--the "bush" told them that ale was to be had within. the landlord was a west country man, and robert found to his joy that the landlord's old father had known colin edrupt the shepherd and dame lysbeth, and danced at their wedding, nearly half a century before. next morning, with the sun still in their eyes as they trotted briskly londonward, they came to the massive gray wall, with the fleet, a deep swift river, flowing down beside it to the thames. they were waiting outside new gate when the watchmen swung open the great doors, and the crowd of travelers, traders and country folk began to push in. the men with the woolpacks kept together, edging through the narrow streets that sloped downward to the river where the tall ships were anchored. the jingle of the bridle-bells, that rang so loud and merrily over the hills, was quite drowned out in the racket of the city streets where armorers were hammering, horsemen crowding, tradesmen shouting, and business of every sort was going on. robert had somehow supposed that london would be on a great level encircled by hills, but he found with surprise that it was itself on a hill, crowned by the mighty cathedral st. paul's, longer than winchester, with a steeple that seemed climbing to pierce the clouds. at last the shaggy laden horses came to a halt at a warehouse by the river, where a little, dried-up-looking man in odd garments looked the wool over and agreed with master hardel on the price which he would pay. robert could not understand a word of the conversation, for the wholesale merchant was a hollander from antwerp, and when he had loaded his ship with the wool it would go to flanders to be made into fine cloth. robert was so busy watching the transactions that when the master spoke to him it made him jump. "here is the money for thy wool, my lad," the old man said kindly. "hark 'ee, if you choose to ride with us again, meet me at shepherd's bush on the sixth day hence, and you shall have that good-for-naught gib's place. and keep thy money safe; this is a place of thieves." that was how robert edrupt rode from the west country and settled in his mind that some day he would himself be a wool-merchant. the biographer the little green lizard on solomon's wall basked in the gold of a shimmering noon, heard the insistent, imperious call of hautboy and tabor and loud bassoon, when balkis passed by, with her alien grace, and the light of wonder upon her face, to sit by the king in his lofty hall,- and the little green lizard saw it all. the little green lizard on solomon's wall waited for flies the long day through, while the craftsmen came at the monarch's call to the task that was given each man to do, and the temple rose with its cunning wrought gold, cedar and silver, and all it could hold in treasure of tapestry, silk and shawl,- and the little green lizard observed it all. the little green lizard on solomon's wall heard what the king said to one alone, secrets that only the djinns may recall, graved on the sacred, ineffable stone. and yet, when the little green lizard was led to speak of the king, when the king was dead, he had only kept count of the flies on the wall,- for he was but a lizard, after all! ii basil the scribe how an irish monk in an english abbey came to stand before kings brother basil, of the scriptorium, was doing two things at once with the same brain. he did not know whether any of the other monks ever indulged in this or not. none of them showed any signs of it. the abbot was clearly intent, soul, brain and body, on the ruling of the community. in such a house as this dozens of widely varied industries must be carried on, much time spent in prayer, song and meditation, and strict attention given to keeping in every detail the traditional benedictine rule. in many mediæval abbeys not all these things were done. rumor hinted that one order was too fond of ease, and another of increasing its estates. in the irish abbey where brother basil had received his first education, little thought was given to anything but religion; the fare was of the rudest and simplest kind. but in this english abbey everything in the way of clothing, tools, furniture, meat and drink which could be produced on the lands was produced there. guests of high rank were often entertained. the church, not yet complete, was planned on a magnificent scale. the work of the making of books had grown into something like a large publishing business. as the parchments for the writing, the leather for the covers, the goose-quill pens, the metal clasps, the ink, and the colors for illuminated lettering, were all made on the premises, a great deal of skilled labor was involved. besides the revenues from the sale of manuscript volumes the abbey sold increasing quantities of wool each year. under some abbots this material wealth might have led to luxury. but benedict of winchester held that a man who took the vows of religion should keep them. with this brother basil entirely agreed. he desired above all to give his life to the service of god and the glory of his order. he was a skillful, accurate and rapid penman. manuscripts copied by him, or under his direction, had no mistakes or slovenly carelessness about them. the pens which he cut were works of art. the ink was from a rule for which he had made many experiments. every book was carefully and strongly bound. brother basil, in short, was an artist, and though the work might be mechanical, he could not endure not to have it beautifully done. the abbot was quite aware of this, and made use of the young monk's talent for perfection by putting him in charge of the scriptorium. in the twelfth century the monks were almost the only persons who had leisure for bookmaking. they wrote and translated many histories; they copied the books which made up their own libraries, borrowed books wherever they could and copied those, over and over again. they sold their work to kings, noblemen, and scholars, and to other religious houses. the need for books was so great that in the scriptorium of which brother basil had charge, very little time was spent on illumination. missals, chronicles and books of hymns fancifully decorated in color were done only when there was a demand for them. they were costly in time, labor and material. brother basil could copy a manuscript with his right hand and one half his brain, while the other half dreamed of things far afield. he could not remain blind to the grace of a bird's wing on its flight northward in spring, to the delicate seeking tendrils of grapevines, the starry beauty of daisies or the tracery of arched leafless boughs. within his mind he could follow the gracious curves of the noble norman choir, and he had visions of color more lustrous than a sunrise. day by day, year by year, the sheep nibbled the tender springing grass. yet the green sward continued to be decked with orfrey-work of many hues--buttercups, violets, rose-campion, speedwell, daisies--defiant little bright heads not three inches from the roots. his fancies would come up in spite of everything, like the flowers. but would it always be so? was he to spend his life in copying these bulky volumes of theology and history--the same old phrases, the same authors, the same seat by the same window? and some day, would he find that his dreams had vanished forever? might he not grow to be like brother peter, who had kept the porter's lodge for forty years and hated to see a new face? this was the doubt in the back of his mind, and it was very sobering indeed. years ago, when he was a boy, he had read the old stories of the missionary monks of scotland and ireland. these men carried the message of the cross to savage tribes, they stood before kings, they wrought wonders. was there no more need for such work as theirs? even now there was fierce misrule in ireland. even now the dispute between church and state had resulted in the murder of the archbishop of canterbury on the steps of the altar. the abbeys of all england had hummed like bee-hives when that news came. brother basil discovered just then that the ink was failing, and went to see how the new supply was coming on. it was a tedious task to make ink, but when made it lasted. wood of thorn-trees must be cut in april or may before the leaves or flowers were out, and the bundles of twigs dried for two, three or four weeks. then they were beaten with wooden mallets upon hard wooden tablets to remove the bark, which was put in a barrel of water and left to stand for eight days. the water was then put in a cauldron and boiled with some of the bark, to boil out what sap remained. when it was boiled down to about a third of the original measure it was put into another kettle and cooked until black and thick, and reduced again to a third of its bulk. then a little pure wine was added and it was further cooked until a sort of scum showed itself, when the pot was removed from the fire and placed in the sun until the black ink purified itself of the dregs. the pure ink was then poured into bags of parchment carefully sewn and hung in the sunlight until dry, when it could be kept for any length of time till wanted. to write, one moistened the ink with a little wine and vitriol. as all the colors for illumination must be made by similar tedious processes, it can be seen that unless there was a demand for such work it would not be thrifty to do it. brother basil arrived just in time to caution the lay brother, simon gastard, against undue haste. gastard was a clever fellow, but he needed watching. he was too apt to think that a little slackness here and there was good for profits. brother basil stood over him until the ink was quite up to the standard of the abbey. but his mind meanwhile ran on the petty squabblings and dry records of the chronicle that he had just been copying. how, after all, was he better than gastard? he was giving the market what it wanted--and the book was not worth reading. if men were to write chronicles, why not make them vivid as legends, true, stirring, magnificent stories of the men who moved the world? who would care, in a thousand years, what rent was paid by the tenant farmers of the abbey, or who received a certain benefice from the king? as he turned from the sunlit court where the ink was a-making, he received a summons to the abbot's own parlor. he found that dignitary occupied with a stout and consequential monk of perhaps forty-five, who was looking bewildered, snubbed, and indignant. brother ambrosius was most unaccustomed to admonitions, even of the mildest. he had a wide reputation as a writer, and was indeed the author of the very volume which brother basil was now copying. he seemed to know by instinct what would please the buyers of chronicles, and especially what was to be left out. it was also most unusual to see the abbot thoroughly aroused. he had a cool, indifferent manner, which made his rebukes more cutting. now he was in wrathful earnest. [illustration: "'some of us will live to see thomas of canterbury a saint of the church'"] "ambrosius," he thundered, "there are some of us who will live to see thomas of canterbury a saint of the church. but that is no reason why we should gabble about it beforehand. you have been thinking yourself a writer, have you? your place here has been allowed you because you are--as a rule--cautious even to timidity. silence is always safe, and an indiscreet pen is ruinous. the children of the brain travel far, and they must not discuss their betters." "shall we write then of the doings of binds and swinkers?" asked the historian, pursing his heavy mouth. "it seems we cannot write of kings and of saints." "you may write anything in reason of kings and of saints--when they are dead," the abbot retorted. "but if you cannot avoid treasonable criticism of your king, i will find another historian. go now to your penance." and brother ambrosius, not venturing a reply, slunk out. in the last three minutes brother basil had seen far beneath the surface of things. his deep-set blue eyes flamed. the dullness of the chronicle was not always the dullness of the author, it seemed. the king showed at best none too much respect for the church, and his courtiers had dared the murder of becket. surely the abbot was right. "basil," his superior observed grimly, "in a world full of fools it would be strange if some were not found here. it is the business of the church to make all men alike useful to god. because the murder of an archbishop has set all christendom a-buzz, we must be the more zealous to give no just cause of offence. i do not believe that henry is guilty of that murder, but if he were, he would not shrink from other crimes. in the one case we have no reason to condemn him; in the other, we must be silent or court our own destruction. there are other ways of keeping alive the memory of thomas of canterbury besides foolish accusations in black and white. there may be pictures, which the people will see, ballads which they will hear and repeat--the very towers of the cathedral will be his monument. "i have sent for you now because there is work for you to do elsewhere. the road from paris to byzantium may soon be blocked. the emperor of germany is at open war with the pope. turks are attacking pilgrims in the holy land. soon it may be impossible, even for a monk, to make the journey safely. the time to go is now. "you will set forth within a fortnight, and go to rouen, paris and limoges; thence to rome, byzantium and alexandria. i will give you memoranda of certain manuscripts which you are to secure if possible, either by purchase or by securing permission to make copies. get as many more as you can. the king is coming here to-night in company with the archbishop of york, the chancellor, a prince of ireland, and others. he may buy or order some works on the ancient law. he desires also to found an abbey in ireland, to be a cell of this house. i have selected cuthbert of oxenford to take charge of the work, and he will set out immediately with twelve brethren to make the foundation. when you return from your journey it will doubtless be well under way. you will begin there the training of scribes, artists, metal workers and other craftsmen. it is true that you know little of any work except that of the scriptorium, but one can learn to know men there as well as anywhere. you will observe what is done in france, lombardy and byzantium. the men to whom you will have letters will make you acquainted with young craftsmen who may be induced to go to ireland to work, and teach their work to others. little can be done toward establishing a school until ireland is more quiet, but in this the king believes that we shall be of some assistance. i desire you to be present at our conference, to make notes as you are directed, and to say nothing, for the present, of these matters. ambrosius may think that you are to have his place, and that will be very well." the abbot concluded with a rather ominous little smile. brother basil went back to the scriptorium, his head in a whirl. within a twelvemonth he would see the mosaics of saint mark's in venice, the glorious windows of the french cathedrals, the dome of saint sophia, the wonders of the holy land. he was no longer part of a machine. indeed, he must always have been more than that, or the abbot would not have chosen him for this work. he felt very humble and very happy. he knew that he must study architecture above anything else, for the building done by the monks was for centuries to come. each brother of the order gathered wisdom for all. when a monk of distinguished ability learned how to strengthen an arch here or carve a doorway there, his work was seen and studied by others from a hundred towns and cities. living day by day with their work, the builders detected weaknesses and proved step by step all that they did. cuthbert of oxenford was a sure and careful mason, but that was all. the beauty of the building would have to be created by another man. glass-work, goldsmith work, mosaics, vestments and books might be brought from abroad, but the stone-work must be done with materials near at hand and such labor as could be had. brother basil received letters not only to abbots and bishops, but to gerard the wood-carver of amiens, matteo the florentine artist, tomaso the physician of padua, angelo the glass-maker. he set all in order in the scriptorium where he had toiled for five long years. then, having been diligent in business, he went to stand before the king. many churchmen pictured this plantagenet with horns and a cloven foot, and muttered references to the old fairy tale about a certain ancestor of the family who married a witch. but brother basil was familiar with the records of history. he knew the fierce norman blood of the race, and knew also the long struggle between matilda, this king's mother, and stephen. here, in the plainly furnished room of the abbot, was a hawk-nosed man with gray eyes and a stout restless figure, broad coarse hands, and slightly bowed legs, as if he spent most of his days in the saddle. the others, churchmen and courtiers, looked far more like royalty. yet henry's realm took in all england, a part of ireland, and a half of what is now france. he was the only real rival to the german emperor who had defied and driven into exile the pope of rome. if henry were of like mind with frederick barbarossa it would be a sorry day indeed for the church. if he were disposed to contend with barbarossa for the supreme power over europe, the land would be worn out with wars. what would he do? brother basil watched the debating group and tried to make up his mind. he wrote now and then a paragraph at the abbot's command. it seemed that the king claimed certain taxes and service from the churchmen who held estates under him, precisely as from the feudal nobles. the abbots and bishops, while claiming the protection of english law for their property, claimed also that they owed no obedience to the king, but only to their spiritual master. argument after argument was advanced by their trained minds. but it was not for amusement that henry ii., after a day with some hunting abbot, falcon on fist, read busily in books of law. brother basil began to see that the king was defining, little by little, a code of england based on the old roman law and customs handed down from the primitive british village. would he at last obey the church, or not? suddenly the monarch halted in his pacing of the room, turned and faced the group. the lightning of his eye flashed from one to another, and all drew back a little except the abbot, who listened with the little grim smile that the monks knew. "i tell ye," said henry, bringing his hard fist down upon the oaken table, "pope or no pope, emperor or no emperor, i will be king of england, and this land shall be fief to no king upon earth. i will have neither two masters to my dogs, nor two laws to my realm. hear ye that, my lords and councilors?" venetian glass sea-born they learned the secrets of the sea, prisoned her with strong love that left her free, cherished her beauty in those fragile chains whereof this precious heritage remains. venetian glass! the hues of sunset light, the gold of starlight in a winter night, heaven joined with earth, and faeryland was wrought in these the crystal palaces of thought. iii the picture in the window how alan of the abbey farms learned to make stained glass alan sat kicking his heels on the old roman wall which was the most solid part of the half-built cathedral. he had been born and brought up on a farm not far away, and had never seen a town or a shop, although he was nearly thirteen years old. around the great house in which the monks of the abbey lived there were a few houses of a low and humble sort, and the farm-houses thereabouts were comfortable; but there was no town in the neighborhood. the monks had come there in the beginning because it was a lonely place which no one wanted, and because they could have for the asking a great deal of land which did not seem to be good for anything. after they had settled there they proceeded to drain the marshes, fell the woods in prudent moderation, plant orchards and raise cattle and sheep and poultry. alan's father was one of the farmers who held land under the abbey, as his father and grandfather had done before him. he paid his rent out of the wool from his flocks, for very soon the sheep had increased far beyond the ability of the monks to look after them. sometimes, when a new wall was to be built or an old one repaired, he lent a hand with the work, for he was a shrewd and honest builder of common masonry and a good carpenter as well. the cathedral had been roofed in so that services could be held there, but there was only one small chapel, and the towers were not even begun. all that would have to be done when money came to hand, and what with the king's wars in normandy, and against the scots, his expedition to ireland, and his difficulties with his own barons, the building trade in that part of england was a poor one. alan wondered, as he tilted his chin back to look up at the strong and graceful arches of the windows near by, whether he should ever see any more of it built. in the choir there were bits of stone carving which he always liked to look at, but there were only a few statues, and no glass windows. brother basil, who had traveled in france and italy and had taught alan something of drawing, said that in the cities where he had been, there were marvelous cathedrals with splendid carved towers and windows like jeweled flowers or imprisoned flame, but no such glories were to be found in england at that time. the boy looked beyond the gray wall at the gold and ruby and violet of the sunset clouds behind the lace-work of the bare elms, and wondered if the cathedral windows were as beautiful as that. he had an idea that they might be like the colored pictures in an old book which brother basil had brought from rome, which he said had been made still further east in byzantium--the city which we know as constantinople. in the arched doorway which led from the garden into the orchard some one was standing--a small old man, bent and tired-looking, with a pack on his shoulder. alan slid off the stone ledge and ran down the path. the old man had taken off his cap and was rubbing his forehead wearily. his eyes were big and dark, his hair and beard were dark and fine, his face was lined with delicate wrinkles, and he did not look in the least like the people of the village. his voice was soft and pleasant, and though he spoke english, he did not pronounce it like the village people, or like the monks. "this--is the cathedral?" he said in a disappointed way, as if he had expected something quite different. "yes," drawled alan, for he spoke as all the farmer-folk did, with a kind of twang. "but they are doing no work here," said the old man. alan shook his head. "it has been like this ever since i can remember. father says there's no knowing when it will be finished." the old man sighed, and then broke out in a quick patter of talk, as if he really could not help telling his story to some one. alan could not understand all that he said, but he began to see why the stranger was so disappointed. he was italian; he had come to london from france, and only two days after landing he had had a fall and broken his leg, so that he had been lame ever since. then he had been robbed of his money. some one had told him that there was an unfinished cathedral here, and he had come all the way on foot in the hope of finding work. now, it seemed, there was no work to be had. what interested alan was that this old man had really helped to build the wonderful french cathedrals of which brother basil had told, and he was sure that if brother basil were here, something might be done. but he was away, on a pilgrimage; the abbot was away too; and brother peter, the porter, did not like strangers. alan decided that the best thing to do would be to take the old man home and explain to his mother. dame cicely at the abbey farm was usually inclined to give alan what he asked, because he seldom asked anything. he was rather fond of spending his time roaming about the moors, or trying to draw pictures of things that he had seen or heard of; and she was not sure whether he would ever make a farmer or not. she was touched by the old man's troubles, and liked his polite ways; and alan very soon had the satisfaction of seeing his new friend warm and comfortable in the chimney-corner. the rambling old farm-house had all sorts of rooms in it, and there was a little room in the older part, which had a window looking toward the sunset, a straw bed, a bench, and a fireplace, for it had once been used as a kitchen. it was never used now except at harvest-time, and the stranger could have that. nobody in the household, except alan, could make much of the old man's talk. the maids laughed at his way of speaking english; the men soon found that he knew nothing of cattle-raising, or plowing, or carpentering, or thatching, or sheep-shearing. but alan hung about the little room in all his spare time, brought fagots for the fire, answered questions, begged, borrowed or picked up somewhere whatever seemed to be needed, and watched with fascinated eyes all the doings that went on. the old man's name, it appeared, was angelo pisano, and he had actually made cathedral windows, all by himself. although italian born, he had spent much of his life in france, and had known men of many nations, including the english. he meant now to make a window to show the abbot when he returned, and then, perhaps, the abbot would either let him stay and work for the church, or help him to find work somewhere else. the first thing that he did was to mix, in a black iron pot that alan found among rubbish, some sand and other mysterious ingredients, and then the fire must be kept up evenly, without a minute's inattention, until exactly the proper time, when the molten mass was lifted out in a lump on the end of a long iron pipe. alan held his breath as the old man blew it into a great fragile crimson bubble, and then, so deftly and quickly that the boy did not see just how, cut the bottle-shaped hollow glass down one side and flattened it out, a transparent sheet of rose-red that was smooth and even for the most part, and thick and uneven around a part of the edge. everything had to be done a little at a time. angelo was working with such materials as he could get, and the glass did not always turn out as he meant it should. twice it was an utter failure and had to be re-melted and worked all over again. once it was even finer in color than it would have been if made exactly by the rule. angelo said that some impurity in the metal which gave the color had made a more beautiful blue than he expected. dame cicely happened to be there when they were talking it over, and nodded wisely. "'tis often that way," said she. "i remember once in the baking, the oven was too cold and i made sure the pasties would be slack-baked, and they was better than ever we had." alan was not sure what the glassmaker would think of this taking it for granted that cookery was as much a craft as the making of windows, but the old man nodded and smiled. "i think that there is a gramarye in the nature of things," he said, "and god to keep us from being too wise in our own conceit lets it now and then bring all our wisdom to folly. now, my son, we will store these away where no harm can come to them, for i have never known god to work miracles for the careless, and we have no more than time to finish the window." they had sheets of red, blue, green, yellow and clear white glass, not very large, but beautifully clear and shining, and these were set carefully in a corner with a block of wood in front of them for protection. then angelo fell silent and pulled at his beard. the little money that he had was almost gone. "alan, my son," he said presently, "do you know what lead is?" alan nodded. "the roof of the chapel was covered with it," he said, "the chapel that burned down. the lead melted and rained down on the floor, and burned brother basil when he ran in to save the book with the colored pictures." the glass-worker smiled. "your brother basil," he said, "must have the soul of an artist. i wonder now what became of that lead?" "they saved a little, but most of it is mixed up with the rubbish and the ashes," alan said confidently. "do you want it?" angelo spread his hands with a funny little gesture. "want it!" he said. "where did they put those ashes?" lead was a costly thing in the middle ages. it was sometimes used for roofing purposes, as well as for gutter-pipes and drain-pipes, because it will not rust as iron will, and can easily be worked. alan had played about that rubbish heap, and he knew that there were lumps of lead among the wood-ashes and crumbled stones. much marveling, he led the artist to the pile of rubbish that had been thrown over the wall, and helped to dig out the precious bits of metal. then the fire was lighted once more, and triumphantly angelo melted the lead and purified it, and rolled it into sheets, and cut it into strips. "now," he said one morning, "we are ready to begin. i shall make a medallion which can be set in a great window like embroidery on a curtain. it shall be a picture--of what, my son?" his dark eyes were very kind as he looked at the boy's eager face. the question had come so suddenly that alan found no immediate answer. then he saw his pet lamb delicately nibbling at a bit of green stuff which his mother held out to it as she stood in her blue gown and white apron, her bright hair shining under her cap. "i wish we could make a picture of her," he said a little doubtfully. angelo smiled, and with a bit of charcoal he made a sketch on a board. alan watched with wonder-widened eyes, although he had seen the old man draw before. then they went together into the little room which had seen so many surprising things, and the sketch was copied on the broad wooden bench which they had been using for a table. then holding one end of a piece of string in the middle of the lamb's back, angelo slipped the charcoal through a loop in the other end, and drew a circle round the whole. around this he drew a wreath of flowers and leaves. then he laid the white glass over the lamb and drew the outline just as a child would draw on a transparent slate, putting in the curls of the wool, the eyes and ears and hoofs, with quick, sure touches. this done, he set the white glass aside, and drew dame cicely's blue gown and the blue of a glimpse of sky on the blue glass. the green of the grass and the bushes was drawn on the green glass, and the roses on the red, and on the yellow, the cowslips in the grass. when all these had been cut out with a sharp tool, they fitted together exactly like the bits of a picture-puzzle, but with a little space between, for each bit of the picture had been drawn a trifle inside the line to leave room for the framework. now it began to be obvious what the lead was for. with the same deftness he had shown throughout the old glass-worker bent the strips of lead, which had been heated just enough to make them flexible, in and out and around the edges of the pieces of colored glass, which were held in place as the leaden strips were bent down over the edges, as a picture is held in the frame. when the work was finished, the medallion was a picture in colored glass, of a woman of gracious and kindly bearing, a pale gold halo about her face, her hand on the head of a white lamb, and a wreath of blossoms around the whole. when the sun shone through it, the leaden lines might have been a black network holding a mass of gems. dame cicely looked at it with awed wonder, and the lamb bleated cheerfully, as if he knew his own likeness. [illustration: "the medallion was a picture in colored glass"] then there was an exclamation from the gateway, and they turned to see a thin-faced man in the robe and sandals of a monk, with sea-blue eyes alight in joy and surprise. "is it you, indeed, angelo!" he cried. "they told me that a glass-worker was doing marvelous things here, and i heard a twelvemonth since that you were leaving normandy for england. where have you been all this time?" the upshot of it all was that after much talk of old times and new times, angelo was asked to make a series of stained glass windows for the abbey, with all the aid that the friendship of the abbot and brother basil could supply. he kept his little room at the farm, where he could see the sunset through the trees, and have the comfortable care of dame cicely when he found the cold of the north oppressive; but he had a glass-house of his own, fitted up close by the abbey, and there alan worked with him. the abbot had met in rouen a north-country nobleman, of the great vavasour family, who had married a flemish wife and was coming shortly to live on his estates within a few miles of the abbey. he desired to have a chapel built in honor of the patron saint of his family, and had given money for that, and also for the windows in the abbey. the abbot had been thinking that he should have to send for these windows to some glass-house on the continent, and when he found that the work could be done close at hand by a master of the craft, he was more than pleased. with cathedrals and churches a-building all over england, and the abbot to make his work known to other builders of his order, there was no danger that angelo would be without work in the future. some day, he said, alan should go as a journeyman and see for himself all the cathedral windows in italy and france, but for the present he must stick to the glass-house. and this alan was content to do, for he was learning, day by day, all that could be learned from a man superior to most artists of either france or italy. troubadour's song when we went hunting in fairyland, (o the chiming bells on her bridle-rein!) and the hounds broke leash at the queen's command, (o the toss of her palfrey's mane!) like shadows we fled through the weaving shade with quivering moonbeams thick inlaid, and the shrilling bugles around us played- i dreamed that i fought the dane. clatter of faun-feet sudden and swift, (o the view-halloo in the dusky wood!) and satyrs crowding the mountain rift, (o the flare of her fierce wild mood!) boulders and hollows alive, astir with a goat-thighed foe, all teeth and fur, we husked that foe like a chestnut bur- i thought of the holy rood. we trailed from our shallop a magic net, (o the spell of her voice with its crooning note!) by the edge of the world, where the stars are set, (o the ripples that rocked our boat!) but into the mesh of the star-sown dream a mermaid swept on the lashing stream, a drift of spume and an emerald gleam- i remembered my love's white throat. when we held revel in fairyland, (o the whirl of the dancers under the hill!) the wind-harp sang to the queen's light hand, (o her eyes, so deep and still!) but i was a captive among them all, and the jeweled flagons were brimming with gall, and the arras of gold was a dungeon-wall,- i dreamed that they set me free! iv the grasshoppers' library how ranulph le provençal ceased to be a minstrel and became a troubadour on a hillside above a stone-terraced oval hollow, a youth lay singing softly to himself and making such music as he could upon a rote. the instrument was of the sort which king david had in mind when he said, "awake, psaltery and harp; i myself will awake early." it was a box-shaped thing like a zither, which at one time had probably owned ten strings. the player was adapting his music as best he might to favor its peculiarities. notwithstanding his debonair employment, he did not look as if he were on very good terms with life. his cloak and hose were shabby and weather-stained, his doublet was still less presentable, his cheeks were hollow, and there were dark circles under his eyes. presently he abandoned the song altogether, and lay, chin in hand, staring down into the grass-grown, ancient pit. it had begun its history as a roman amphitheater, a thousand years before. gladiators had fought and wild beasts had raged in that arena, whose encircling wall was high enough to defy the leap of the most agile of lions. up here, on the hillside, in the archways outside the outermost ring of seats, the slaves had watched the combats. the youth had heard something about these old imperial customs, and he had guessed that he had come upon a haunt of the roman colonists who had founded a forgotten town near by. he wondered, as he lay there, if he himself were in any better ease than those unknown captives, who had fought and died for the amusement of their owners. ranulph le provençal, as he was one day to be known, was the son of a provençal father and a norman mother. in the siege of a town his father had been killed and his mother had died of starvation, and he himself had barely escaped with life. that had been the penalty of being on the wrong side of the struggle between the normans of anjou and their unwilling subjects in aquitaine. at the moment the rebellious counts of aquitaine were getting the best of it. ranulph knew little of the tangled politics of the time, but it seemed to him that all france was turned into a cockpit in which the sovereign counts of france, who were jealous of their independence, and the fierce pride of the angevin dukes who tried to keep a foothold in both france and england, and the determined ambition of the king who sat in paris, were warring over the enslavement of an unhappy people. he himself had no chance of becoming a knight; his life was broken off before it had fairly begun. he got his living by wandering from one place to another making songs. he had a voice, and could coax music out of almost any sort of instrument; and he had a trick of putting new words to familiar tunes that made folk laugh and listen. neighborhood quarrels had drained money and spirit out of the part of the country where he was, and he had almost forgotten what it was like to have enough to eat. the little dog that had followed him through his wanderings for a year foraged for scraps and fared better than his master; but now small zipero was hungry too. the little fellow had been mauled by a mastiff that morning, and a blow from a porter's staff had broken his leg. ranulph had rescued his comrade at some cost to himself, and might not have got off so easily if a sudden sound of trumpets had not cleared the way for a king's vanguard. as the soldiers rode in at the gates the young minstrel folded his dog in his cloak and limped out along the highway. up here in the shade of some bushes by the deserted ruins, he had done what he could for his pet, but the little whimper zipero gave now and then seemed to go through his heart. life had been difficult before, but he had been stronger, or more ignorant. he had made blithe songs when he was anything but gay at heart; he had laughed when others were weeping and howling; he had danced to his own music when every inch of his body ached with weariness; and it had all come to this. he had been turned out of his poor lodgings because he had no money; he had been driven out of the town because he would not take money earned in a certain way. he seemed to have come to the end. if that were the case he might as well make a song about it and see what it would be like. he took up the rote, and began to work out a refrain that was singing itself in his head. zipero listened; he was quieter when he heard the familiar sound. the song was flung like a challenge into the silent arena. the planet of love in the cloud-swept night hangs like a censer of gold, and venus reigns on her starlit height even as she ruled of old. yet the planet of war is abroad on earth in a chariot of scarlet flame, and mercy and loyalty, love and mirth must die for his grisly fame. ravens are croaking and gray wolves prowl on the desolate field of death, the smoke of the burning hangs like a cowl- grim terror throttles the breath. yet a white bird flies in the silent night to your window that looks on the sea, to bear to my lady of all delight this one last song from me. "princess, the planets that rule our life are the same for beggar or king,- we may win or lose in the hazard of strife, there is ever a song to sing! we are free as the wind, o heart of gold! the stars that rule our lot are netted fast in a bond ninefold,- the twist of solomon's knot." "so you believe that, my son?" asked a voice behind him. he sat up and looked about; an old man in a long dusky cloak and small flat cap had come over the brow of the hill. he answered, a trifle defiantly, "perhaps i do. at any rate, that is the song." "oh, it is true," the old man said quietly as he knelt beside zipero on the turf. he examined the bandages on the little dog's neck and forelegs, undid them, laid some bruised leaves from his basket on the wounds. the small creature, with his eyes on his master's face, licked the stranger's hand gratefully to show that he was more at ease. "man alone is free. this herb cannot change itself; it must heal; that one must slay. saturn is ever the greater malignant; our lady venus cannot rule war, nor can mars rule a court of love. the most uncertain creature in the world is a man. the stars themselves cannot force me to revile god." ranulph was silent. after months and years among rude street crowds, the dignity and kindliness of the old man's ways were like a voice from another world. "i can cure this little animal," the stranger went on presently, "if you will let me take him to my lodgings, where i have certain salves and medicines. i shall be pleased if you will come also, unless you are occupied." ranulph laughed; that was absurd. "i am a street singer," he said. "my time is not in demand at present. i must tell you, however, that the count is my enemy--if a friendless beggar can have such a thing. one of his varlets set his ban-dog on us both, this morning." "he will give me no trouble," said the old man quietly. "come, children." ranulph got to his feet and followed with zipero in his arms. at the foot of the hill on the other side was a nondescript building which had grown up around what was left of a roman house. the unruined pillars and strongly cemented stone-work contrasted oddly with the thatch and tile of peasant workmen. they passed through a gate where an old and wrinkled woman peered through a window at them, then they went up a flight of stairs outside the wall to a tower-room in the third story. a chorus of welcome arose from a strange company of creatures, caged and free: finches, linnets, a parrot, a raven which sidled up at once to have its head scratched, pigeons strutting and cooing on the window-ledge, and a large cat of a slaty-blue color with solemn, topaz eyes, which took no more note of zipero than if he had been a dog of stone. a basket was provided for the small patient, near the window that looked out over the hills; the old servingwoman brought food, simple but well-cooked and delicious, and ranulph was motioned to a seat at the table. it was all done so easily and quickly that dinner was over before ranulph found words for the gratitude which filled his soul. "will you not tell me," he said hesitatingly at last, "to whom i may offer my thanks--and service--if i may not serve you in some way?" "give to some one else in need, when you can," said his host calmly. "i am tomaso of padua. a physician's business is healing, wherever he finds sickness in man or beast. your little friend there needed certain things; your need is for other things; the man who is now coming up the stairs needs something else." taking a harp from a corner he added, "perhaps you will amuse yourself with this for an hour, while i see what that knock at the door means, this time." whoever the visitor was, he was shown into another room, and ranulph presently forgot all his troubles and almost lost the consciousness of his surroundings, as the harp sang under his hand. he began to put into words a song which had been haunting him for days,--a ballad of a captive knight who spent seven long years in fairyland, but in spite of all that the fairy queen's enchantment could do, never forgot his own people. many of the popular romances of the time were fairy-tales full of magic spells, giants, caverns within the hills, witches and wood-folk hoofed and horned like pan, sea-monsters, palaces which appeared and vanished like moon-shine. when they were sung to the harp-music of a troubadour who knew his work, they seemed very real. "that is a good song," said a stranger who had come in so quietly that ranulph did not see him. "did you find it in spain?" ranulph stood up and bowed with the grace that had not left him in all his wandering life. "no," he said, his dark eyes glinting with laughter, "i learned it in the grasshoppers' library. i beg your pardon, master,--that is a saying we have in provence. you will guess the meaning. a learned physician found me there, studying diligently though perhaps not over-profitably upon a hillside." "not bad at all," said the stranger, sitting down by ranulph in the window and running over the melody on the harp. his fingers swept the strings in a confident power that showed him a master-musician, and he began a song so full of wonder, mystery and sweetness that ranulph listened spellbound. neither of them knew that for centuries after they sat there singing in a ruined roman tower, the song would be known to all the world as the legend of parzifal. "i too have studied in the grasshoppers' library," said the singer, "but i found in an ancient book among the infidels in spain this tale of a cup of enchantment, and made use of it. i think that it is one of those songs which do not die, but travel far and wide in many disguises, and end perhaps in the church. you are one of us, are you not?" "i am a street singer," ranulph answered, "a jongleur--a jester. i make songs for this,"--he took up his battered rote and hummed a camp-chorus. "do you mean to say that you play like that--on that?" asked the other. "your studies must have led you indeed to fairyland. you ought to go to england. the plantagenets are friendly to us troubadours, and the english are a merry people, who delight in songs and the hearing of tales." ranulph did not answer. going to england and going to fairyland were not in the same class of undertaking. fairyland might be just over the border of the real world, but it cost money to cross the seas. tomaso came in just then, his deep-set eyes twinkling. "it is all right," he said, nodding to the troubadour. "i have been telling our friend here that he should go to england," said the latter, rising and putting on his cloak. "if, as you say, his father was loyal to the house of anjou, henry will remember it. he is a wise old fox, is henry, and he needs men whom he can trust. he is changing laws, and that is no easy thing to do when you have a stubborn people with all sorts of ideas in their heads about custom, and tradition, and what not. he wants to make things safe for his sons, and the throne on which he sits is rocking. the french king is greedy and the welsh are savage, and italian galleys crowd the very pool of london. i remember me when i was a student in paris, a welsh clerk--he calls himself now giraldus cambrensis, but his name then was gerald barri,--had the room over mine, the year that philip was born. we woke up one night to find the whole street ablaze with torches and lanterns, and two old crones dancing under our windows with lighted torches in their hands, howling for joy. barri stuck his head out of window and asked what ailed them, and one of them screamed in her cracked voice, 'we have got a prince now who will drive you all out of france some day, you englishmen!' i can see his face now as he shouted back something that assuredly was not french. i tell you, philip will hate the english like his father before him, and these are times when a troubadour who can keep a merry face and a close tongue will learn much." as the door closed the physician sat down in his round-backed chair, resting his long, wrinkled hands upon the arms. "well, my son," he said in his unperturbed voice, "i find somebody yonder is very sorry that you were thrown out of the gates this morning." ranulph glanced up quickly, but said nothing. "he had no idea that you were here, of course. he came to get me to ask the stars what had become of you, as you could not be found on the road. when he found that you would not serve him in the matter of the dagger and the poison, he never intended to let you leave the town, but as you know, your dog, seeing you mishandled, flew at his varlet, and the thick-headed fellow drove you out before he had any further orders. by such small means," old tomaso stroked zipero's head, "are evil plans made of no account." ranulph drew a long breath. he had lost color. "but you," he faltered, "you must not shelter me if he is thus determined. he will take vengeance on you." the physician smiled. "he dares not. he is afraid of the stars. he knows also that i hold the death of every soul in his house in some small vial such as this--and he does not know which one. he knows that i have only to reveal to any minstrel what i know of his plans and his doings, and he would be driven from the court of his own sovereign. he can never be sure what i am going to do, and he does not know himself what he is going to do, so that he fears every one. by the twelve houses of fate, it must be unpleasant to be so given over to hatred! "now, my son, let us consider. you heard what christian said but now of the need of the house of anjou for faithful service. a trouvère can go where others cannot. he knows what others dare not ask. he can say what others cannot. were it not for that prince of mischief and minstrelsy, bertran de born, henry and his folk would have been at peace long ago. know men's hearts, and though you are a beggar in the market-place, you can turn them as a man turns a stream with a wooden dam. you shall go with christian to troyes and thence to tours, and i will keep your little friend here until he is restored, and bring him to you when i come to that place. if search is made for you it will be made in venice, where they think you have gone." ranulph, with the aid of his new friends, went forth with proper harp and new raiment a day or two afterward, and repaid the loan of old tomaso when he met the latter in tours some six months later. he did not give up his studies in the grasshoppers' library, but the lean years were at an end both for him and for zipero. the wood-carver's vision the hounds of gabriel racing with the gale, baying wild music past the tossing trees, the ship of souls with moonlight-silvered sail high over storm-swept seas, the faun-folk scampering to their dim abode, the goblin elves that haunt the forest road, with visage of the snake and eft and toad,- i carve them as i please. bertrand's gray saintly patriarchs of stone, angelo the pisan's gold-starred sapphire sky, marc's venice glass, a jeweled rose full-blown,- envy of none have i. mine be the basilisk with mitered head, and loup-garou and mermaid, captive led by little tumbling cherubs who,--'tis said,- are all but seen to fly. why hold we here these demons in the light of the high altar, by god's candles cast? they are the heathen creatures of the night, in heavenly bonds made fast. they are set here, that for all time to be, when god's own peace broods over earth and sea, men may remember, in a world set free, the terrors that are past. v the box that quentin carved how quentin of peronne learned his trade when a boy in amiens any one who happened to be in the market-place of amiens one sunshiny summer morning in the last quarter of the twelfth century, might have seen a slim, dark, dreamy-eyed boy wandering about with teeth set in a ripe golden apricot, looking at all there was to be seen. but the chances were that no one who was there did see him, because people were very busy with their own affairs, and there was much to look at, far more important and interesting than a boy. in fact quentin, who had come with his father, jean of peronne, to town that very morning, was not important to any one except his father and himself. they had been living in a small village of northern france, where they had a tiny farm, but when the mother died, jean left the two older boys to take care of the fields, and with his youngest son, who was most like the mother, started out to find work elsewhere. he was a good mason, and masons were welcome anywhere. in all french cities and many towns cathedrals, castles or churches were a-building, and no one would think of building them of anything but stone. while quentin speculated on life as it might be in this new and interesting place, there was a shout of warning, a cry of terror from a woman near by, a dull rumble and crash, and a crowd began to gather in the street beside the cathedral. before the boy could reach the place, a man in the garb of a benedictine monk detached himself from the group and came toward him. "my boy," he said kindly, "you are quentin, from peronne? yes? do not be frightened, but i must tell you that your father has been hurt. they are taking him to a house near by, and if you will come with me, i will take care of you." the next few days were anxious ones for quentin. his father did not die, but it was certain that he would do no more work as a mason for years, if ever. one of the older brothers came to take him home, and it was taken for granted that quentin would go also. but the boy had a plan in his head. there was none too much to eat at home, as it was, and it would be a long time before he was strong enough to handle stone like his father. brother basil, the monk who had seen his father caught under the falling wall, helped to rescue him, and taken care that he did not lose sight of his boy, had been very kind, but he did not belong in amiens; he was on his way to rome. quentin met him outside the house on the day that pierre came in from peronne, and gave him a questioning look. he was wondering if brother basil would understand. the smile that answered his look was encouraging. "well, my boy," said brother basil in his quaintly spoken french, "what is it?" quentin stood very straight, cap in hand. "i do not want to go home," he said slowly. "i want to stay here--and work." "alone?" asked the monk. quentin nodded. "marc and pierre work all day in the fields, and i am of no use there; they said so. pierre said it again just now. i am not strong enough yet to be of use. there is work here that i can do." he traced the outline of an ancient bit of carving on the woodwork of the overhanging doorway with one small finger. "i can do that," he said confidently. brother basil's black eyebrows lifted a trifle and his mouth twitched; the boy was such a scrap of a boy. yet he had seen enough of the oaken choir-stalls and the carved chests and the wainscoting of amiens to know that a french wood-carver is often born with skill in his brain and his fingers, and can do things when a mere apprentice that others must be trained to do. "what have you done?" he said gravely. "i carved a box for the mother, and when the cousin adele saw it she would have one too. it was made with a wreath of roses on the lid, but i would not make roses for any one but the mother; adele's box has lilies, and a picture of herself. that she liked better." brother basil was thinking. "quentin," he said, "i know a wood-carver here, master gerard, who is from peronne, and knows your talk better than i. he was a boy like you when he began to learn the work of the huchier and the wood-carver, and he might give you a place in his shop. will your father let you stay?" "he will if i get the chance," said quentin. "if i ask him now, pierre will say things." like many younger brothers, quentin knew more about the older members of his family than they knew about him. brother basil's smile escaped control this time. he turned and strode across the market-place to the shop of master gerard, beckoning quentin to follow. "master," he said to the old huchier, who was planing and chipping and shaping a piece of spanish chestnut, "here is a boy who has fallen in love with your trade." master gerard glanced up in some surprise. "he likes the trade, does he?" was the gruff comment he made. "does the trade like him?" "that is for you to say," said brother basil, and turning on his heel he went out, to walk up and down in the sunshine before the door and meditate on the loves of craftsmen for their crafts. "what can you do?" asked the old man shortly, still working at his piece of chestnut. quentin took from his pouch a bit of wood on which he had carved, very carefully, the figure of a monk at a reading-desk with a huge volume before him. he had done it the day before after he had been with brother basil to bring some books from the bishop's house, and although the figure was too small and his knife had been too clumsy to make much of a portrait of the face, he had caught exactly the intent pose of the head and the characteristic attitude of the monk's angular figure. master gerard frowned. "what sort of carving is that!" he barked. "the wood is coarse and the tools were not right. you tell me you did it?" quentin stood his ground. "it is my work, master," he said. "i had only this old knife, and i know the wood is not right, but it was all that i had." "and you want to learn my trade--eh?" said the old man a little more kindly. "you have no father?" quentin explained. master gerard looked doubtful. he had met boys before who liked to whittle, and wished to work in his shop; he had apprentices whose fathers were good workmen and wished their sons to learn more than they could teach; but very seldom did he meet a boy who would work as he himself had worked when he was a lad, never satisfied with what he did, because the vision in his mind ran ahead of the power in his fingers. he was an old man now, but he was still seeing what might be done in wood-working if a man could only have a chance to come back, after he had spent one lifetime in learning, and use what he had learned, in the strength of a new, clear-sighted youth. he had sons of his own, but they were only good business men. they could sell the work, but they had no inspirations. "i will let you try what you can do," he said at last, "that is, if your father is willing. tell him to come and see me before he goes home. and look you--come back when you have told him this, and copy this work of yours in the proper fashion, with tools and wood which i will give you." quentin bowed, thanked the old wood-carver, walked, by a great effort, steadily out of the shop and answered a question of brother basil's, and then flashed like a squirrel in a hurry across the square and up the narrow winding stair in the side street where his father lodged, with the news. pierre began two or three sentences, but never finished them. jean of peronne knew all about master gerard, and was only too glad to hear of such a chance for his motherless boy. and all the happy, sunlit afternoon quentin sat in a corner, working away with keen-edged tools that were a joy to the hand, at a smooth-grained, close-fibered bit of wood that never splintered or split. master gerard was what might be called a carpenter, or cabinet-maker. he did not make doors or window-frames, or woodwork for houses, because the great houses of that day were built almost entirely of stone. neither did he make furniture such as chairs, tables, or bureaus, because it was not yet thought of. kings' households and great families moved about from castle to castle, and carried with them by boat, or in heavy wagons over bad roads, whatever comforts they owned. modern furniture would have been fit for kindling-wood in a year, but ancient french luggage was built for hard travel. master gerard made chests of solid, well-seasoned wood, chosen with care and put together without nails, by fitting notch into notch at the corners. these were called huches, and master gerard was a master huchier. these huches were longer and lower than a large modern trunk, and could be set one on another, after they were carried up narrow twisting stairways on men's shoulders. the lid might be all in one piece, but more often it was in halves, with a bar between, so that when the chest was set on its side or end the lids would form doors. ledges at top and bottom protected the corners and edges, and there might be feet that fitted into the bottom of the chest and made it easier to move about. the larger ones were long enough to use for a bed, and in these the tapestries that covered the walls, the embroidered bed-hangings, the cushions and mattresses to make hard seats and couches more comfortable, and the magnificent robes for state occasions, could be packed for any sort of journey. huches were needed also for silver and gold state dishes, and the spices, preserved fruits and other luxuries needed for state feasts. it was desirable to make the chests beautiful as well as strong, for they were used as furniture; there might be a state bedstead, a huge wardrobe and one or two other furnishings in the apartments used by great folk, but the table was a movable one made of boards on trestles, and the carved huches, decorated with the heraldic emblems of the owner, served innumerable purposes. when one sees the specimens that are left, it does not seem surprising that when kings and queens went anywhere in the middle ages they went, if possible, by water. luggage of that kind could be carried more easily by barge than by wagon. after the first day, when he finished the small carved figure of brother basil for his master to see, quentin did almost anything but carving. he ran errands, he sharpened tools, he helped a journeyman at his work, he worked on common carpentering which required no artistic skill. the work which master gerard undertook was not such as an apprentice could be trusted to do. quentin, watching as closely as he could all that was done in the shop, saw that one sort of wood was chosen for one use, and another kind for a different job; he saw how a tool was handled to get a free, bold curve or a delicate fold of drapery, and he found out more about the trade in a year than most modern carpenters ever learn. it was hot and uncomfortable in amiens that summer. life inside walls, among houses crowded and tall, was not like life in a country village, but it was not in quentin to give up. when he felt like leaving the noisy, treeless town for the forest he would try to make a design of the flowers he remembered, or carve a knotted branch with the tools that he was allowed to use. he knew that when he should be entrusted with the carving of a chest, if that time ever came, he would have to be able to make his own design, if necessary, for that was a part of the work. chests were carved on the lids and ends, which showed when they were set up, and sometimes they were covered with carving. master gerard had a chest of his own, full of patterns which he brought out to show his patrons now and then, but which no one else ever touched. these patterns, however, were rarely followed exactly. each great family had its own heraldic device, and the leopard, the dragon, the dolphin, the fleur-de-lis, the portcullis, or whatever it might be, must form an important part of the decoration. some of the patterns, while their proportions were perfect, were too simple for the taste of the one who ordered the chest, and had to be varied. some were too elaborate for a small piece of work, and had to be made simpler. the wood-carver had very little chance of success unless he was also an artist, as he usually was. one day a great piece of carving was finished, and master gerard himself went to see that the workmen carried it safely; it was a chest in the form of a half-circle, for the tapestries and embroideries of the cathedral, in which the state mantle and robes of the bishop could be laid flat with all their heavy gold-work. the youngest journeyman, pol, who was left to mind the shop, slipped out a few minutes later, charging quentin strictly to stay until he came back. quentin had no objection. he wanted to try a pattern of his own for a small huche that was finished all but the carving. he had in mind a pattern of master gerard's, a border simple yet beautiful. it was copied from the inner wall of a greek temple, although he did not know that. it was a running vine with leaves and now and then a flower, not like any vine that he had ever seen. the inclosed oblong on the lid was divided into halves by a bar, in the form of a woman's figure. quentin thought that that was rather too stately a decoration for a small chest, and he decided to use a simple rounded bar, with grooves, which he knew that he could do well. he was not sure how the border went. of course, he might wait until master gerard came back and ask to see the pattern, but he did not quite like to do that. it might seem presuming. he wondered how it would do to try apricot twigs laid stem to tip in a curving line, a ripe fruit in place of the flower of the pattern, and blossom-clusters here and there. he tried it cautiously, drawing the outline first on a corner, and it looked so well that he began to carve the twigs. he was finishing the second when he heard a voice in the doorway. "does master gerard do his work with elves? or have the fairies taken him and left a changeling?" the voice was musical with laughter, and the boy looked up to see a lovely and richly-robed lady standing within the door. a little behind her was a young man in the dress of a troubadour, and servingmen stood outside holding the bridles of the horses. quentin sprang to his feet and bowed respectfully. "master gerard is but absent for an hour or two," he said; "shall i run to the cathedral and fetch him?" "nay," the lady answered, sinking into the high-backed chair in the corner, "it is cool here, and we will await him. ranulph, come look at this coffret. i maintain that the fairies teach these people to work in wood as they do. saw you ever the like?" the troubadour bent over the just-begun carving. "this is no boy's play; this is good work," he said. "you have the right notion; the eye and the hand work together like two good comrades." "my lord shall see this when he comes. i like the work." she touched the cheek of the apricot with a dainty finger. "where did you get the pattern?" quentin looked down, rather shyly; he did not feel sure that he would be believed. "i had no pattern," he said. "i remembered one that master gerard made for a great house a month since--" "and so do i!" laughed the lady. "now i know where i saw that border. therefore, not having the copy before you----" "you invented this variation. upon my word, the race of wood-carvers has not come to an end," laughed the young man. "i think that his royal highness will like this coffret well." [illustration: "'upon my word, the race of wood-carvers has not yet come to an end'"] all in a flash it came to quentin who this was. some time before he had heard that the princess margaret, daughter of the french king, was in the city, with her husband, prince henry of england. it was for the prince that master gerard had made that other chest. things linked themselves together in this world, it seemed, like the apricots and blossoms of his design. "finish the chest," said the princess after a pause. "i will have it for a traveling casket. can you carve a head on the top--or two heads, facing one another, man and woman?" "like this?" asked quentin, and he traced an outline on the bench. it was the lady's beautiful profile. master gerard came in just then, and pol came slinking in at the back door. the next day quentin was promoted to pol's place, and finished his chest in great content and happiness. it was the beginning in a long upward climb to success. the caged bouverel i am a little finch with wings of gold, i dwell within a cage upon the wall. i cannot fly within my narrow fold,- i eat, and drink, and sing, and that is all. my good old master talks to me sometimes, but if he knows my speech i cannot tell. he is so large he cannot sing nor fly, but he and i are both named bouverel. i think perhaps he really wants to sing, because the busy hammer that he wields goes clinking light as merry bells that ring when morris-dancers frolic in the fields, and this is what the music seems to tell to me, the finch, the feathered bouverel. "kling-a-ling--clack! masters, what do ye lack? hammer your heart in't, and strike with a knack! flackety kling- biff, batico, bing! platter, cup, candlestick, necklace or ring! spare not your labor, lads, make the gold sing,- and some day perhaps ye may work for the king!" [illustration] vi at the sign of the gold finch how guy, the goldsmith's apprentice, won the desire of his heart bang--slam--bang-bang--slam! slam! slam! if anybody on the chepe in the twelfth century had ever heard of rifle-practice, early risers thereabouts might have been reminded of the crackle of guns. the noise was made by the taking down of shutters all along the shop fronts, and stacking them together out of the way. the business day in london still begins in the same way, but now there are plate-glass windows inside the shutters, and the shops open between eight and nine instead of soon after day-break. it was the work of the apprentices and the young sons of shop-keepers to take down the shutters, sweep the floors, and put things in order for the business of the day. this was the task which guy, nephew of gamelyn the goldsmith, at the sign of the gold finch, particularly liked. the air blew sweet and fresh from the convent gardens to the eastward of the city, or up the river below london bridge, or down from the forest-clad hills of the north, and those who had the first draft of it were in luck. london streets were narrow and twisty-wise, but not overhung with coal smoke, for the city still burned wood from the forests without the walls. on this may morning, guy was among the first of the boys who tumbled out from beds behind the counter and began to open the shops. the shop-fronts were all uninclosed on the first floor, and when the shutters were down the shop was separated from the street only by the counter. above were the rooms in which the shop-keeper and his family lived, and the second story often jutted over the one below and made a kind of covered porch. in some of the larger shops, like this one of goldsmiths' row, the jewelers' street, there was a third story which could be used as a storeroom. there were no glass cases or glass windows. lattices and shutters were used in window-openings, and the goods of finer quality were kept in wooden chests. the shop was also a work-room, for the shopkeeper was a manufacturer as well, and a part if not all that he sold was made in his own house. guy, having stacked away the shutters and taken a drink of water from the well in the little garden at the rear, got a broom and began to sweep the stone floor. it was like the brooms in pictures of witches, a bundle of fresh twigs bound on the end of a stick, withes of supple young willow being used instead of cord. some of the twigs in the broom had sprouted green leaves. guy sang as he swept the trash out into the middle of the street, but as a step came down the narrow stair he hushed his song. when old gamelyn had rheumatism the less noise there was, the better. the five o'clock breakfast, a piece of brown bread, a bit of herring and a horn cup of ale, was soon finished, and then the goldsmith, rummaging among his wares, hauled a leather sack out of a chest and bade guy run with it to ely house. this was an unexpected pleasure, especially for a spring morning as fair as a blossoming almond tree. the bishop of ely lived outside london wall, near the road to oxford, and his house was like a palace in a fairy-tale. it had a chapel as stately as an ordinary church, a great banquet-hall, and acres of gardens and orchards. no pleasanter place could be found for an errand in may. guy trotted along in great satisfaction, making all the speed he could, for the time he saved on the road he might have to look about in ely house. for a city boy, he was extremely fond of country ways. he liked to walk out on a holiday to mile end between the convent gardens; he liked to watch the squirrels flyte and frisk among the huge trees of epping forest; he liked to follow at the heels of the gardener at ely house and see what new plant, shrub or seed some traveler from far lands had brought for the bishop. he did not care much for the city houses, even for the finest ones, unless they had a garden. privately he thought that if ever he had his uncle's shop and became rich,--and his uncle had no son of his own,--he would have a house outside the wall, with a garden in which he would grow fruits and vegetables for his table. another matter on which his mind was quite made up was the kind of things that would be made in the shop when he had it. the gold finch that served for a sign had been made by his grandfather, who came from limoges, and it was handsomer than anything that guy had seen there in gamelyn's day. silver and gold work was often sent there to be repaired, like the cup he had in the bag, a silver wine-cup which the bishop's steward now wanted at once; but guy wanted to learn to make such cups, and candlesticks, and finely wrought banquet-dishes himself. he gave the cup to the steward and was told to come back for his money after tierce, that is, after the service at the third hour of the day, about half way between sunrise and noon. there were no clocks, and guy would know when it was time to go back by the sound of the church bells. the hall was full of people coming and going on various errands. one was a tired-looking man in a coarse robe, and broad hat, rope girdle, and sandals, who, when he was told that the bishop was at westminster on business with the king, looked so disappointed that guy felt sorry for him. the boy slipped into the garden for a talk with his old friend the gardener, who gave him a head of new lettuce and some young mustard, both of which were uncommon luxuries in a london household of that day, and some roots for the tiny walled garden which he and aunt joan were doing their best to keep up. as he came out of the gate, having got his money, he saw the man he had noticed before sitting by the roadside trying to fasten his sandal. the string was worn out. a boy's pocket usually has string in it. guy found a piece of leather thong in his pouch and rather shyly held it out. the man looked up with an odd smile. "i thank you," he said in curious formal english with a lisp in it. "there is courtesy, then, among londoners? i began to think none here cared for anything but money, and yet the finest things in the world are not for sale." guy did not know what to answer, but the idea interested him. "the sky above our heads," the wayfarer went on, looking with narrowed eyes at the pink may spilling over the gray wall of the bishop's garden,--"flowers, birds, music, these are for all. when you go on pilgrimage you find out how pleasant is the world when you need not think of gain." the stranger was a pilgrim, then. that accounted for the clothes, but old gamelyn had been on pilgrimage to the new shrine at canterbury, and it had not helped his rheumatism much, and certainly had given him no such ideas as these. guy looked up at the weary face with the brilliant eyes and smile,--they were walking together now,--and wondered. "and what do you in london?" the pilgrim asked. "my uncle is a goldsmith in chepe," said the boy. "and are you going to be a goldsmith in chepe too?" "i suppose so." "then you like not the plan?" guy hesitated. he never had talked of his feeling about the business, but he felt that this man would see what he meant. "i should like it better than anything," he said, "if we made things like those the bishop has. uncle gamelyn says that there is no profit in them, because they take the finest metal and the time of the best workmen, and the pay is no more, and folk do not want them." "my boy," said the pilgrim earnestly, "there are always folk who want the best. there are always men who will make only the best, and when the two come together----" he clapped his hollowed palms like a pair of cymbals. "would you like to make a dish as blue as the sea, with figures of the saints in gold work and jewel-work--a gold cup garlanded in flowers all done in their own color,--a shrine threefold, framing pictures of the saints and studded with orfrey-work of gold and gems, yet so beautiful in the mere work that no one would think of the jewels? would you?" "would i!" said guy with a deep quick breath. "our jewelers of limoges make all these, and when kings and their armies come from the crusades they buy of us thank-offerings,--candlesticks, altar-screens, caskets, chalices, gold and silver and enamel-work of every kind. we sit at the cross-roads of christendom. the jewels come to us from the mines of east and west. men come to us with full purses and glad hearts, desiring to give to the church costly gifts of their treasure, and our best work is none too good for their desire. but here we are at saint paul's. i shall see you again, for i have business on the chepe." guy headed for home as eagerly as a marmot in harvest time, threading his way through the crowds of the narrow streets without seeing them. he could not imagine who the stranger might be. it was dinner time, and he had to go to the cook-shop and bring home the roast, for families who could afford it patronized the cook-shops on the thames instead of roasting and baking at home in the narrow quarters of the shops. in the great houses, with their army of servants and roomy kitchens, it was different; and the very poor did what they could, as they do everywhere; but when the wife and daughters of the shopkeeper served in the shop, or worked at embroidery, needle-craft, weaving, or any light work of the trade that they could do, it was an economy to have the cooking done out of the house. when the shadows were growing long and the narrow pavement of goldsmith's row was quite dark, someone wearing a gray robe and a broad hat came along the street, slowly, glancing into each shop as he passed. to guy's amazement, old gamelyn got to his feet and came forward. "is it--is it thou indeed, master?" he said, bowing again and again. the pilgrim smiled. "a fine shop you have here," he said, "and a fine young bird in training for the sign of the gold finch. he and i scraped acquaintance this morning. is he the youth of whom you told me when we met at canterbury?" it was hard on guy that just at that moment his aunt joan called him to get some water from the well, but he went, all bursting with eagerness as he was. the pilgrim stayed to supper, and in course of time guy found out what he had come for. he was eloy, one of the chief jewelers of limoges, which in the middle ages meant that his work was known in every country of europe, for that city had been as famous for its gold work ever since the days of clovis as it is now for porcelain. enamel-work was done there as well, and the cunning workmen knew how to decorate gold, silver, or copper in colors like vivid flame, living green, the blue of summer skies. eloy offered to take guy as an apprentice and teach him all that he could for the sake of the maker of the gold finch, who had been his own good friend and master. it was as if the head of one of the great paris studios should offer free training for the next ten years to some penniless art student of a country town. what amazed guy more than anything else, however, was the discovery that his grumbling old uncle, who never had had a good word to say for him in the shop, had told this great artist about him when they met five years before, and begged eloy if ever he came to london to visit the gold finch and see the little fellow who was growing up there to learn the ancient craft in a town where men hardly knew what good work was. even now old gamelyn would only say that his nephew was a good boy and willing, but so painstaking that he would never make a tradesman; he spent so much unnecessary time on his work. "he may be an artist," said eloy with a smile; and some specimens of the work which guy did when he was a man, which are now carefully kept in museums, prove that he was. no one knows how the enamel-work of limoges was done; it is only clear that the men who did it were artists. the secret has long been lost--ever since the city, centuries ago, was trampled under the feet of war. up anchor yo-o heave ho! an' a y-o heave ho! and lift her down the bay- we're off to the pillars of hercules, all on a summer's day. we're off wi' bales of our southdown wool our fortune all to win, and we'll bring ye gold and gowns o' silk, veils o' sendal as white as milk, and sugar and spice galore, lasses- when our ship comes in! vii the venture of nicholas gay how nicholas gay, the merchant's son, kept faith with a stranger and served the king nicholas gay stood on the wharf by his father's warehouse, and the fresh morning breeze that blew up from the pool of the thames was ruffling his bright hair. he could hear the seamen chanting at the windlass, and the shouts of the boatmen threading their skiffs and scows in and out among the crowded shipping. there were high-pooped flemish freighters, built to hold all the cargo possible for a brief voyage; english coasting ships, lighter and quicker in the chop of the channel waves; larger and more dignified london merchantmen, that had the best oak of the weald in their bones and the pick of the southdown wool to fill them full; mediterranean galleys that shipped five times the crew and five times the cargo of a london ship; weather-beaten traders that had come over the north sea with cargoes of salt fish; and many others. the scene was never twice the same, and the boy never tired of it. coming into port with a cargo of spices and wine was a long mediterranean galley with oars as well as sails, each oar pulled by a slave who kept time with his neighbor like a machine. the english made their bid for fortune with the sailing-ship, and even in the twelfth century, when their keels were rarely seen in any eastern port, there was little of the rule of wind and sea short of gibraltar that their captains did not know. up mart lane, the steep little street from the wharves, nicholas heard some one singing a familiar chantey, but not as the sailors sang it. he was a slender youth with a laugh in his eye, and he was singing to a guitar-like lute. he was piecing out the chantey and fitting words to it, and succeeding rather well. nicholas stood by his father's warehouse, hands behind him and eyes on the ship just edging out to catch the tide, and listened to the song, his heart full of dreams. "hey, there, youngster!" said the singer kindly as he reached the end of the strophe. "have you a share in that ship that you watch her so sharply?" "no," said nicholas gravely, "she's not one of father's ships. she's the _heath hen_ of weymouth, and she's loaded with wool, surely, but she's for bordeaux." "bless the urchin, he might have been born on board!" the young man looked at nicholas rather more attentively. "your father has ships, then?" nicholas nodded proudly. "the _rose-in-june_, and the _sainte spirite_, and the _thomasyn_,--she's named for mother,--and the _sainte genevieve_, because father was born in paris, you know, and the _saint nicholas_,--that's named for me. but i'm not old enough to have a venture yet. father says i shall some day." the pool of the thames was crowded, and as the wind freshened the ships looked even more like huge white-winged birds. around them sailed and wheeled and fluttered the real sea-birds, picking up their living from the scraps thrown overboard,--swans, gulls, wild geese and ducks, here and there a strange bird lured to the harbor by hope of spoil. the oddly mated companions, the man and the boy, walked along busy thames street and came to tower hill and the great gray fortress-towers, with a double line of wall coiled around the base, just outside the city of london. the deep wide moat fed from the river made an island for the group of buildings with the square white tower in the middle. "none of your friends live there, i suppose?" the young man inquired, and nicholas smiled rather dubiously, for he was not certain whether it was a joke or not. the tower had been prison, palace and fort by turns, but common criminals were not imprisoned there--only those who had been accused of crimes against the state. "lucky you," the youth added. "london is much pleasanter as a residence, i assure you. i lodged not far from here when i first came, but now i lodge----" that sentence was never finished. clattering down tower hill came a troop of horse, and one, swerving suddenly, caught nicholas between his heels and the wall, and by the time the rider had his animal under control the little fellow was lying senseless in the arms of the stranger, who had dived in among the flying hoofs and dragged him clear. the rider, lagging behind the rest, looked hard at the two, and then spurred on without even stopping to ask whether he had hurt the boy. before nicholas had fairly come to himself he shut his teeth hard to keep from crying out with the pain in his side and left leg. the young man had laid him carefully down close by the wall, and just as he was looking about for help three of the troopers came spurring back, dismounted, and pressed close around the youth as one of them said something in french. he straightened up and looked at them, and in spite of his pain nicholas could not help noticing that he looked proudly and straightforwardly, as if he were a gentleman born. he answered them in the same language; they shook their heads and made gruff, short answers. the young man laid his hand on his dagger, hesitated, and turned back to nicholas. "little lad," he said, "this is indeed bad fortune. they will not let me take you home, but----" so deftly that the action was hidden from the men who stood by, he closed nicholas' hand over a small packet, while apparently he was only searching for a coin in his pouch and beckoning to a respectable-looking market-woman who halted near by just then. he added in a quick low tone without looking at the boy, "keep it for me and say nothing." nicholas nodded and slipped the packet into the breast of his doublet, with a groan which was very real, for it hurt him to move that arm. the young man rose and as his captors laid heavy hands upon him he put some silver in the woman's hand, saying persuasively, "this boy has been badly hurt. i know not who he is, but see that he gets home safely." "aye, master," said the woman compassionately, and then everything grew black once more before nicholas' eyes as he tried to see where the men were going. when he came to himself they were gone, and he told the woman that he was nicholas gay and that his father was gilbert gay, in fenchurch street. the woman knew the house, which was tile-roofed and three-storied, and had a garden; she called a porter and sent him for a hurdle, and they got nicholas home. the merchant and his wife were seriously disturbed over the accident,--not only because the boy was hurt, and hurt in so cruel a way, but because some political plot or other seemed to be mixed up in it. from what the market-woman said it looked as if the men might have been officers of the law, and it was her guess that the young man was an italian spy. whatever he was, he had been taken in at the gates of the tower. in a city of less than fifty thousand people, all sorts of gossip is rife about one faction and another, and if gilbert gay came to be suspected by any of the king's advisers there were plenty of jealous folk ready to make trouble for him and his. time went by, however, and they heard nothing more of it. nicholas said nothing, even to his mother, of the packet which he had hidden under the straw of his bed. it was sealed with a splash of red wax over the silken knot that tied it, and much as he desired to know what was inside, nicholas had been told by his father that a seal must never be broken except by the person who had a right to break it. gilbert gay had also told his children repeatedly that if anything was given to them, or told them, in confidence, it was most wrong to say a word about it. it never occurred to nicholas that perhaps his father would expect him to tell of this. the youth had told him not to tell, and he must not tell, and that was all about it. the broken rib and the bruises healed in time, and by the season when the _rose-in-june_ was due to sail, nicholas was able to limp into the rose-garden and play with his little sister genevieve at sailing rose-petal boats in the fountain. the time of loading the ships for a foreign voyage was always rather exciting, and this was the best and fastest of them all. when she came back, if the voyage had been fortunate, she would be laden with spices and perfumes, fine silks and linen, from countries beyond the sunrise where no one that nicholas knew had ever been. from india and persia, arabia and turkey, caravans of laden camels were even then bringing her cargo across the desert. they would be unloaded in such great market-places as moussoul, damascus, bagdad and cairo, the babylon of those days. alexandria and constantinople, tyre and joppa, were seaport market-cities, and here the venetian and genoese galleys, or french ships of marseilles and bordeaux, or the half-saracen, half-norman traders of messina came for their goods. the _rose-in-june_ would touch at antwerp and unload wool for flemish weavers to make into fine cloth; she would cruise around the coast, put in at bordeaux, and sell the rest of her wool, and the grain of which england also had a plenty. she might go on to cadiz, or even through the straits of gibraltar to marseilles and messina. the more costly the stuff which she could pack into the hold for the homeward voyage, the greater the profit for all concerned. since wool takes up far more room in proportion to its value than silk, wine or spices, money as well as merchandise must be put into the venture, and the more money, the more profit. others joined in the venture with master gay. edrupt the wool-merchant furnished a part of the cargo on his own account; wool-merchants traveled through the country as agents for master gay. the men who served in the warehouse put in their share; even the porters and apprentices sent something, if no more than a shilling. there was some profit also in the passenger trade, especially in time of pilgrimage when it was hard to get ships enough for all who wished to go. the night before the sailing, nicholas escaped from the happy hubbub and went slowly down to the wharves. it was not a very long walk, but it tired him, and he felt rather sad as he looked at the grim gray tower looming above the river, and wondered if the owner of the packet sealed with the red seal would ever come back. as he passed the little church at the foot of tower hill a light step came up behind him, and two hands were placed on his shoulders. "my faith!" said the young man. "have you been here all this time?" [illustration: "'have you been here all this time?'"] he was thinner and paler, but the laughter still sparkled in his dark eyes, and he was dressed in daintily embroidered doublet, fine hose, and cloak of the newest fashion, a gold chain about his neck and a harp slung from his shoulder. a group of well-dressed servants stood near the church. "i'm well now," said nicholas rather shyly but happily. "i'm glad you have come back." "i was at my wit's end when i thought of you, lad," went on the other, "for i remembered too late that neither of us knew the other's name, and if i had told mine or asked yours in the hearing of a certain rascal it might have been a sorry time for us both. they made a little mistake, you see,--they took me for a traitor." "how could they?" said nicholas, surprised and indignant. "oh, black is white to a scared man's eyes," said his companion light-heartedly. "how have your father's ships prospered?" "there's one of them,"--nicholas pointed, proudly, across the little space of water, to the _rose-in-june_ tugging at her anchor. "she's a fine ship," the young man said consideringly, and then, as he saw the parcel nicholas was taking from his bosom, "do you mean to say that that has never been opened? what sort of folk are you?" "i never told," said nicholas, somewhat bewildered. "you said i was not to speak of it." "and there was no name on it, for a certain reason." the young man balanced the parcel in his hand and whistled softly. "you see, i was expecting to meet hereabouts a certain pilgrim who was to take the parcel to bordeaux,--and beyond. i was--interfered with, as you know, and now it must go by a safe hand to one who will deliver it to this same pilgrim. i should say that your father must know how to choose his captains." "my father is master gilbert gay,"--nicholas held his head very straight--"and that is master garland, the captain of the _rose-in-june_, coming ashore now." "oh, i know him. i have had dealings with him before now. how would it be--since without your good help this packet would almost certainly have been lost--to let the worth of it be your venture in the cargo?" "my venture?" nicholas stammered, the color rising in his cheeks. "my venture?" "it is not worth much in money," the troubadour said with a queer little laugh, "but it is something. master garland, i see you have not forgotten me,--ranulph, called le provençal. here is a packet to be delivered to tomaso the physician of padua, whom you know. the money within is this young man's share in your cargo, and tomaso will pay you for your trouble." master garland grinned broadly in his big beard. "surely, sure-ly," he chuckled, and pocketed the parcel as if it had been an apple, but nicholas noted that he kept his hand on his pouch as he went on to the wharf. "and now," ranulph said, as there was a stir in the crowd by the church door,--evidently some one was coming out. "i must leave you, my lad. some day we shall meet again." then he went hastily away to join a brilliant company of courtiers in traveling attire. things were evidently going well with ranulph. nicholas thought a great deal about that packet in the days that followed. he took to experimenting with various things to see what could account for the weight. lead was heavy, but no one would send a lump of lead of that size over seas. the same could be said of iron. he bethought him finally of a goldsmith's nephew with whom he had acquaintance. guy bouverel was older, but the two boys knew each other well. "guy," he said one day, "what's the heaviest metal you ever handled?" "gold," said guy promptly. "a bag that was too heavy to have silver in it would have gold?" "i should think so. have you found treasure?" "no," said nicholas, "i was wondering." the _rose-in-june_ came back before she was due. master garland came up to the house with gilbert gay, one rainy evening when nicholas and genevieve were playing nine-men's-morris in a corner and their mother was embroidering a girdle by the light of a bracket lamp. nicholas had been taught not to interrupt, and he did not, but he was glad when his mother said gently, but with shining eyes, "nicholas, come here." it was a queer story that captain garland had to tell, and nobody could make out exactly what it meant. two or three years before he had met ranulph, who was then a troubadour in the service of prince henry of anjou, and he had taken a casket of gold pieces to tomaso the physician, who was then in genoa. "they do say," said captain garland, pulling at his russet beard, "that the old doctor can do anything short o' raising the dead. they fair worshiped him there, i know. but it's my notion that that box o' gold pieces wasn't payment for physic." "probably not," said the merchant smiling. "secret messengers are more likely to deliver their messages if no one knows they have any. but what happened this time?" "why," said the sea captain, "i found the old doctor in his garden, with a great cat o' malta stalking along beside him, and i gave him the packet. he opened it and read the letter, and then he untied a little leather purse and spilled out half a dozen gold pieces and some jewels that fair made me blink--not many, but beauties--rubies and emeralds and pearls. he beckoned toward the house and a man in pilgrim's garb came out and valued the jewels. then he sent me back to the _rose-in-june_ with the worth o' the jewels in coined gold and this ring here. 'tell the boy,' says he, 'that he saved the king's jewels, and that he has a better jewel than all of them, the jewel of honor.'" "but, father," said nicholas, rather puzzled, "what else could i do?" none of them could make anything of the mystery, but as tomaso of padua talked with eloy the goldsmith that same evening they agreed that the price they paid was cheap. in the game the pope's party was playing against that of the emperor for the mastery of europe, it had been deemed advisable to find out whether henry plantagenet would rule the holy roman empire if he could. he had refused the offer of the throne of the cæsars, and it was of the utmost importance that no one should know that the offer had been made. hence the delivery of the letter to the jeweler. london bells london town is fair and great, many a tower and steeple. bells ring early and ring late, mocking all the people. some they say, "good provender," some they sing, "sweet lavender," some they call, "the taverner," some they cry, "the fripperer is lord of london town!" london town is great and wide, many a stately dwelling, and her folk that there abide are beyond all telling. but by land or water-gate, aldgate, newgate, bishopsgate, ludgate, moorgate, cripplegate, bells ring early and ring late, the bells of london town. viii barbara, the little goose-girl how barbara sold geese in the chepe and what fortune she found there any one who had happened to be traveling along the islington road between two and three o'clock in the morning, when london was a walled city, would have seen how london was to be fed that day. but very few were on the road at that hour except the people whose business it was to feed london, and to them it was an old story. there were men with cattle and men with sheep and men with pigs; there were men with little, sober, gray donkeys, not much bigger than a large dog, trotting all so briskly along with the deep baskets known as paniers hung on each side their backs; men with paniers or huge sacks on their own backs, partly resting on the shoulders and partly held by a leather strap around the forehead; men with flat, shallow baskets on their heads, piled three and four deep and filled with vegetables. that was the way in which all the butter, fruit, poultry, eggs, meat, and milk for londoners to eat came into medieval london. before london wall was fairly finished there were laws against any one within the city keeping cattle or pigs on the premises. early every morning the market folk started from the villages round about,--there were women as well as men in the business--and by the time the city gates opened they were there. it was not as exciting to barbara thwaite as it would have been if she had not known every inch of the road, but it was exciting enough on this particular summer morning, for in all her thirteen years she had never been to market alone. goody thwaite had been trudging over the road several times a week for years--seven miles to london and seven miles home--and sometimes she had taken barbara with her, but never had she sent the child by herself. now she was bedridden and unless they were to lose all their work for the last month or more, barbara would have to go to market and tend their stall. several of the neighbors had stalls near by, and they would look after the child, but this was the busy season, and they could not undertake to carry any produce but their own. a neighbor, too old to do out-of-door work, would tend the mother, and with much misgiving and many cautions, consent was given, and barbara set bravely forth alone. she had her hands full in more senses than one. besides the basket she carried on her head, full of cress from the brook, sallet herbs and under these some early cherries, she had a basket of eggs on her arm, and she was driving three geese. barbara's geese were trained to walk in the most orderly single file at home, but she had her doubts as to their behavior in a strange place. the islington road, however, was not the broad and dusty highway that it is to-day, and at first it was not very crowded. now and again, from one of the little wooded lanes that led up to farmsteads, a marketman would turn into the highway with his load, and more and more of them appeared as they neared the city, so that by the time they reached the city gate it was really a dense throng. from roads in every direction just such crowds were pressing toward all the other gates, and boats laden with green stuff, fruits, butter and cheese were heading for the wharves on thames-side, all bound for the market. naturally it had been discovered long before that some sort of order would have to be observed, or there would be a frightful state of things among the eatables. like most cities, london was inhabited largely by people who had come from smaller towns, and certain customs were common more or less to every market-town in england. in the smaller towns the cattle-market was held weekly or fortnightly, so that people not anxious to deal in cattle could avoid the trampling herds. london's cattle-market was not in the chepe at all. it was in the fields outside the walls, in the deep inbent angle which the wall made between aldersgate and newgate, where smithfield market is now. even in the chepe each kind of goods had its own place, and once through the gates the crowd separated. [illustration: "barbara knew exactly where to go"--_page 97_] barbara knew exactly where to go. from aldersgate she turned to the left and followed the narrow streets toward the spire of st. michael's church in cornhill, where the poultry-dealers had their stands. close by was scalding alley, sometimes known as the poultry, where poultry were sold by the score, and the fowls were scalded after being killed, to make them ready for cooking. goody thwaite's little corner, wedged in between two bigger stalls, was not much more than a board with a coarse awning over it, but she had been there a long time and her neighbors were friends. barbara set down her loads, dropped on the bench and scattered a little grain for her geese. they had really behaved very well. she was not very much to look at, this little lass barbara. her grandfather had come from the north country, and she had black hair and eyes like a gypsy. she was rather silent as a rule, though she could sing like a blackbird when no one was about. people were likely to forget about barbara until they wanted something done; then they remembered her. she penned in the geese with a small hurdle of wicker so that they should not get away; she set out the cherries and cress on one side and the eggs on the other; then she put the eggs in a bed of cress to set off their whiteness; then she waited. an apprentice boy came by and asked the price of the cherries, whistled and went on; a sharp-faced woman stopped and looked over what she had, and went on. they were all in a hurry; they were all going on some errand of their own. the next person who came by was an old woman with a fresh bright face, white cap and neat homespun gown. she too asked the price of the cherries and shook her head when she heard it. "how good that cress looks!" she said smiling. barbara held out a bunch of the cress. "i can't give away the cherries," she said, "they are not mine, but you're welcome to this." "thank you kindly, little maid," the old woman said, "my grandson's o'er fond of it. never was such a chap for sallets and the like." a few minutes later a stout, rather fussy man stopped and bought the whole basket of eggs. as he paid for them and signed to the boy who followed to take them, michael the poultryman in the next stall grinned at barbara. "ye don't know who that was, do you?" he said. "that was old gamelyn bouverel the goldsmith. you'll be sorry if any of those eggs be addled, my maiden." "they're not," said barbara. "i know where all our hens' nests are, and gaffer edmunds' too. we sell for him since he had the palsy." then a tall man in a sort of uniform stopped, eyed the staff, and without asking leave took one of the geese from the pen and strode off with it hissing and squawking under his arm. but michael shook his head soberly as barbara sprang up with a startled face. "that was one o' the purveyors of my lord fitz-walter," he said. "he may pay for the bird and he may not, but you can't refuse him. there's one good thing--london folk don't have to feed the king's soldiers nor his household. old king henry,--rest his soul!--settled that in the charter he gave the city, and this one has kept to it. my grand-dad used to tell how any time you might have a great roaring archer or man-at-arms, or more likely two or three or a dozen, quartered in your house, willy nilly, for nobody knew how long. there goes the bell for prime--that ends the privilege." then barbara remembered that the stewards of great houses were allowed to visit the market and choose what they wished until prime (about six o'clock) after which the market was open to common folk. a merchant's wife bought another goose and some cherries, and the remaining goose was taken off her hands by the good-natured michael, to make up a load of his own for a tavern-keeper. the rest of the cherries were sold to a young man who was very particular about the way in which they were arranged in the basket, and barbara guessed that he was going to take them as a present to some one. the cress had gone a handful at a time with the other things, and she had some of it for her own dinner, with bread from the bakeshop and some cold meat which goody collins, her neighbor on the other side, had sent for. she started for home in good time, and brought her little store of money to her mother before any one had even begun to worry over her absence. the next market-day barbara set forth with a light heart, but when she reached her stall she found it occupied. a rough lout had set up shop there, with dressed poultry for sale. a-plenty had been said about it before barbara arrived, both by michael and the rough-tongued, kind-hearted market-women. but michael was old and fat, and no match for the invader. barbara stood in dismay, a great basket of red roses on her head, her egg-basket on the ground, and the cherries from their finest tree in a panier hung from her shoulder. the merchant's wife had asked her if she could not bring some roses for rose-water and conserve, and if she had to hawk them about in the sun they would be fit for nothing. the poultry was crowded, and unless she could have her little foothold here she would be obliged to go about the streets peddling, which she knew her mother would not like at all. "what's the trouble here?" asked a decided voice behind her. she turned to look up into the cool gray eyes of a masterful young fellow with a little old woman tucked under his arm. he was brown and lithe and had an air of outdoor freshness, and suddenly she recognized the old woman. it was that first customer, and this must be the grandson of whom she had spoken so fondly. "this man says he has this place and means to keep it," barbara explained in a troubled but firm little voice. "he says that only the poultry dealers have any right here,--but it's mother's corner and she has had it a long time." "aye, that she has," chorused two or three voices. "and if there was a man belonging to them you'd see yon scamp go packing, like a cat out o' the dairy. 'tis a downright shame, so 'tis." "maybe a man that don't belong to them will do as well," said the youth coolly. "back here, gammer, out of the way--and you go stand by her, little maid. now then, you lummox, are you going to pick up your goods and go, or do i have to throw them after you?" the surly fellow eyed the new-comer's broad shoulders and hard-muscled arms for a moment, picked up his poultry and began to move, but as he loaded his donkeys he said something under his breath which barbara did not hear. an instant later she beheld him lying on his back in a none-too-clean gutter with her defender standing over him. he lost no time in making his way out of the street, followed by the laughter of the poultry. even the ducks, geese and chickens joined in the cackle of merriment. "sit thee down and rest," said the youth to barbara kindly. "we must be getting on, grandmother. if he makes any more trouble, send some one, or come yourself, to our lodging--ask for robert edrupt at the house of master hardel the wool-merchant." "thank you," said barbara shyly. "there's plenty cress in the brook, and i'll bring some next market-day--and strawberries too, but not for pay." "kindness breeds kindness, little maid," added the old woman, and barbara reflected that it sometimes breeds good fortune also. this was not the end of barbara's acquaintance with dame lysbeth and her grandson. the old dame had taken a fancy to the self-possessed, quaintly dignified little maid, and the thwaite garden proved to have in it many fruits and herbs which she needed in her housekeeping. it was a very old-fashioned garden planted a long time ago by a tavern-keeper from the south of france, and he had brought some pears and plums from his old home in the south and grafted and planted and tended them very carefully. there was one tree which had two kinds of pears on it, one for the north side and one for the south. barbara's mother did not get any better. one day robert edrupt stopped in the poultry to buy a goose for dinner, to celebrate his home-coming from a long wool-buying journey, and the stall was empty. "aye," said goody collins, wiping her eyes, "she was a good-hearted woman, was alison thwaite, and there's many who will miss her. she died two days ago, rest her soul." edrupt bought his goose of michael and went on his way looking sober. a plan had occurred to him, and when he talked it over with dame lysbeth she heartily agreed. a day or two later barbara, standing in the door of the little lonely cottage and wondering what she should do now, saw the two of them coming down the lane. dame lysbeth opened the gate and came in, but robert, after a bow and a pleasant word or two to barbara, went on to the next farm on an errand. barbara could hardly believe her ears when she heard what the old dame had to say. the young wool-merchant had brought his grandmother to london to keep house for him because he did not like to leave her alone in her cottage in the west country, nor could he live there so far from the great markets. but neither of them liked the city, and for the next few years he would have to be away more than ever. he and master gay had been considering a scheme for importing foreign sheep to see if they would improve the quality of english wool. before they did this edrupt would have to go to spain, to aquitaine, to lombardy and perhaps even further. while he was abroad he might well study the ways of the weavers as well as the sheep that grew the fleece. he wanted to buy a farm he had seen, with a tidy house on it, where dame lysbeth could have the sort of home she was used to, but with maids to do the heavy farm work. if barbara would come and live there, and help see to things, she would be very welcome indeed as long as she chose to stay. dame lysbeth had never had a daughter, and she had often thought in the last few months that if she had one, she would like to have just such a girl as barbara. the young girl, on her side, already loved her old friend better than she had ever loved anybody but her own mother, and so it came about that when the spring turned the apple orchards white about king's barton, three very happy people went from london to the farm near that village, known as the long lea. it had land about it which was not good enough for corn, but would do very well for geese and for sheep, and there was room for a large garden, as well as the orchard. even in those early days, people who bought an english farm usually inherited some of the work of the previous owner, and as robert said, they would try to farm long lea in such a way as to leave it richer than they found it, and still lose no profit. "don't forget to take cuttings from this garden, lass," he said to barbara in his blunt, kindly way, as they stood there together for the last time. "there are things here which we can make thrive in the years to come." "i have," said barbara staidly. she motioned to a carefully packed and tied parcel in a sack. "and there's a whole basket of eggs from all our fowls." edrupt laughed. he liked her business-like little way. "did you take any red-rose cuttings?" he inquired. "there's a still-room where the old castle used to be, and they'd use some, i believe." "it's the provence rose," barbara said. "i took the whole bush up and set it in a wooden bucket. michael won't want that." michael the poultryman was adding the little garden and the stall in the poultry to his own business. he would cart away the little tumbledown cottage and plant kale there. "the provence rose, is it?" queried edrupt thoughtfully. "we'll have it beside our door, barbara, and that will make you feel more at home." both barbara and the roses throve by transplanting. when edrupt came home from his long foreign journey, more than a year later, it was rose-time, and barbara, with a basket of roses on her arm, was marshaling a flock of most important mother-ducks with their ducklings into the poultry-yard. the house with its tiled and thatched roofs sat in the middle of its flocks and fruits and seemed to welcome all who came, and dame lysbeth, beaming from the window, looked so well content that it did him good to see her. harper's song o listen, good people in fair guildhall- (saxon gate, norman tower on the roman wall) a king in forest green and an abbot in gray rode west together on the pilgrims' way, and the abbot thought the king was a crossbowman, and the king thought the abbot was a sacristan. (on white horse hill the bright sun shone, and blithe sang the wind by the blowing stone,- o, the bridle-bells ring merrily-sweet to the clickety-clack of the hackney's feet!) said the king in green to the abbot in gray, "shrewd-built is yon abbey as i hear say, with purbeck marble and portland stone, stately and fair as a cæsar's throne." "not so," quo' the abbot, and shook his wise head,- "well-founded our cloisters, when all is said, but the stones be rough as the mortar is thick, and piers of rubble are faced with brick." (the saxon crypt and the norman wall keep faith together though kingdoms fall,- o, the mellow chime that the great bells ring is wooing the folk to the one true king!) said the abbot in gray to the king in green, "winchester castle is fair to be seen, and london tower by the changeful tide is sure as strong as the seas are wide." but the king shook his head and spurred on his way,- "london is loyal as i dare say, but the border is fighting us tooth and horn, and the lion must still hunt the unicorn." (the trumpet blared from the fortress tower, the stern alarum clanged the hour,- o, the wild welsh marches their war-song sing to the tune that the swords on the morions ring!) the king and the abbot came riding down to the market-square of chippenham town, where wool-packs, wheatears, cheese-wych, flax, malmsey and bacon pay their tax. quo' the king to the abbot, "the crown must live by what all england hath to give." "faith," quoth the abbot, "good sign is here tithes are a-gathering for our clerkes' cheer." (the song of the mint is the song i sing, the crown that the beggar may share with the king, and the clink of the coin rhymes marvelous well to castle, or chapel, or market-bell!) [illustration] ix richard's silver penny how richard sold a web of russet and made the best of a bad bargain richard was going to market. he was rather a small boy to be going on that errand, especially as he carried on his shoulder a bundle nearly as big as he was. but his mother, with whom he lived in a little, whitewashed timber-and-plaster hut at the edge of the common, was too ill to go, and the cloth fair was not likely to wait until she was well again. the boy could hardly remember his father. sebastian garland was a sailor, and had gone away so long ago that there was little hope that he would ever come back. ever since richard could remember they had lived as they did now, mainly by his mother's weaving. they had a few sheep which were pastured on the common, and one of the neighbors helped them with the washing and shearing. the wool had to be combed and sorted and washed in long and tedious ways before it was ready to spin, and before it was woven it was dyed in colors that dame garland made from plants she found in the woods and fields. she had been a highland scotch girl, and could weave tyrtaine, as the people in the towns called the plaids. none of the english people knew anything about the different tartans that belonged to the scottish clans, but a woman who could weave those could make woolen cloth of a very pretty variety of patterns. she worked as a dyer, too, when she could find any one who would pay for the work, and sometimes she did weaving for a farm-wife who had more than her maids could do. richard knew every step of the work, from sheep-fleece to loom, and wherever a boy could help, he had been useful. he had gone to get elder bark, which, with iron filings, would dye black; he had seen oak bark used to dye yellow, and he knew that madder root was used for red, and woad for blue. his mother could not afford to buy the turmeric, indigo, kermes, and other dyestuffs brought from far countries or grown in gardens. she had to depend on whatever could be got for nothing. the bright rich colors which dyers used in dyeing wool for the london market were not for her. yellow, brown, some kinds of green, black, gray and dull red she could make of common plants, mosses and the bark of trees. the more costly dyestuffs were made from plants which did not grow wild in england, or from minerals. richard was thinking about all this as he trudged along the lane, and thinking also that it would be much easier for them to get a living if it were not for the rules of the weavers' guild. this association was one of the most important of the english guilds of the twelfth century, and had a charter, or protecting permit, from the king, which gave them special rights and privileges. he had also established the cloth fair at smithfield in london, the greatest of all the cloth-markets that were so called. if any man did the guild "any unright or dis-ease" there was a fine of ten pounds, which would mean then more than fifty dollars would to-day. later he protected the weavers still further by ordaining that the portgrave should burn any cloth which had spanish wool mixed with the english, and the weavers themselves allowed no work by candle-light. this helped to keep up the standard of the weaving, and to prevent dishonest dealers from lowering the price by selling inferior cloth. as early as 1100 thomas cole, the rich cloth worker of reading, whose wains crowded the highway to london, had secured a charter from henry i., this king's grandfather, and the measure of the king's own arm had been taken for the standard ell-measure throughout the kingdom. richard knew all this, because, having no one else to talk to, his mother had talked much with him; and the laws of scotland and england differed in so many ways that she had had to find out exactly what she might and might not do. in some of the towns the weavers' guilds had made a rule that no one within ten miles who did not belong to the guild or did not own sheep should make dyed cloth. this was profitable to the weavers in the association, but it was rather hard on those who were outside, and not every one was allowed to belong. the english weavers were especially jealous of foreigners, and some of their rules had been made to discourage flemish and florentine workmen and traders from getting a foothold in the market. richard had been born in england, and when he was old enough to earn a living, he intended to repay his mother for all her hard and lonely work for him. as an apprentice to the craft he could grow up in it and belong to the weavers' guild himself some day, but he thought that if there were any way to manage it he would rather be a trader. he felt rather excited now as he hurried to reach the village before the bell should ring for the opening of the market. king's barton was not a very big town, but on market days it seemed very busy. there was an irregular square in the middle of the town, with a cross of stone in the center, and the ringing of this bell gave notice for the opening and closing of the market. it was not always the same sort of market. once a week the farmers brought in their cattle and sheep. on another day poultry was sold. in the season, there were corn markets and grass markets, for the crops of wheat and hay; and in every english town, markets were held at certain times for whatever was produced in the neighborhood. everybody knew when these days came, and merchants from the larger cities came then to buy or sell--on other days they would have found the place half asleep. in so small a town there was not trade enough to support a shop for the sale of clothing, jewelry and foreign wares; but a traveling merchant could do very well on market days. when richard came into the square the bell had just begun to ring, and the booths were already set up and occupied. his mother had told him to look for master elsing, a man to whom she had sometimes sold her cloth, but he was not there. in his stall was a new man. there was some trade between london and the hanse, or german cities, and sometimes they sent men into the country to buy at the fairs and markets and keep an eye on trade. master elsing had been one of these, and he had always given a fair price. the new man smiled at the boy with his big roll of cloth, and said, "what have you there, my fine lad?" richard told him. the man looked rather doubtful. "let me see it," he said. the cloth was a soft, thick rough web with a long furry nap. if it was made into a cloak the person who wore it could have the nap sheared off when it was shabby, and wear it again and shear it again until it was threadbare. a man who did this work was called a shearman or sherman. the strange merchant pursed his lips and fingered the cloth. "common stuff," he said, "i doubt me the dyes will not be fast color, and it will have to be finished at my cost. there is no profit for me in it, but i should like to help you--i like manly boys. what do you want for it?" richard named the price his mother had told him to ask. there was an empty feeling inside him, for he knew that unless they sold that cloth they had only threepence to buy anything whatever to eat, and it would be a long time to next market day. the merchant laughed. "you will never make a trader if you do not learn the worth of things, my boy," he said good-naturedly. "the cloth is worth more than that. i will give you sixpence over, just by way of a lesson." richard hesitated. he had never heard of such a thing as anybody offering more for a thing than was asked, and he looked incredulously at the handful of silver and copper that the merchant held out. "you had better take it and go home," the man added. "think how surprised your mother will be! you can tell her that she has a fine young son--conrad waibling said so." richard still hesitated, and waibling withdrew the money. "you may ask any one in the market," he said impatiently, "and if you get a better price than mine i say no more." "thank you," said richard soberly, "i will come back if i get no other offer." he took his cloth to the oldest of the merchants and asked him if he would better waibling's price, but the man shook his head. "more than it is worth," he said. "nobody will give you that, my boy." and from two others he got the same reply. he went back to waibling finally, left the cloth and took his price. he had never seen a silver penny before. it had a cross on one side and the king's head on the other, as the common pennies did; it was rather tarnished, but he rubbed it on his jacket to brighten it. he thought he would like to have it bright and shining when he showed it to his mother. all the time that he was sitting on a bank by the roadside, a little way out of the town, eating his bread and cheese, he was polishing the silver penny. a young man who rode by just then, with a black-eyed young woman behind him, reined in his horse and looked down with some amusement. "what art doing, lad?" he asked. "it's my silver penny," said richard. "i wanted it to be fine and bonny to show mother." "ha!" said the young man. "let's see." richard held up the penny. "who gave you that, my boy?" "master waibling the cloth-merchant," said richard, and he told the story of the bargain. the young man looked grave. "barbara," he said to the girl, "art anxious to get home? because i have business with this same waibling, and i want to find him before he leaves the town." the girl smiled demurely. "that's like thee, robert," she said. "ever since i married thee,--and long before, it's been the same. i won't hinder thee. leave me at mary lavender's and i'll have a look about her garden." the two rode off at a brisk pace, and richard saw them halt at a gate not far away, and while the girl went in the man mounted his horse again and came back. "jump thee up behind me, young chap," he ordered, "and we'll see to this. the silver penny is not good. he probably got it in some trade and passed it off on the first person who would take it. look at this one." edrupt held up a silver penny from his own purse. "i didn't know," said richard slowly. "i thought all pennies were alike." "they're not--but until the new law was passed they were well-nigh anything you please. you see, this penny he gave you is an old one. before the new law some time, when the king needed money very badly,--in stephen's time maybe--they mixed the silver with lead to make it go further. that's why it would not shine. and look at this." he took out another coin. "this is true metal, but it has been clipped. some thief took a bag full of them probably, clipped each one as much as he dared, passed off the coins for good money, and melted down the parings of silver to sell. next time you take a silver penny see that it is pure bright silver and quite round." by this time they were in the market-place. edrupt dismounted, and gave richard the bridle to hold; then he went up to waibling's stall, but the merchant was not there. "he told me to mind it for him," said the man in the next booth. "he went out but now and said he would be back in a moment." but the cloth-merchant did not come back. the web of cloth he had bought from richard was on the counter, and that was the only important piece of goods he had bought. quite a little crowd gathered about by the time they had waited awhile. richard wondered what it all meant. presently edrupt came back, laughing. "he has left town," he said to richard. "he must have seen me before i met you. i have had dealings with him before, and he knew what i would do if i caught him here. well, he has left you your cloth and the price of the stuff, less one bad penny. will you sell the cloth to me? i am a wool-merchant, not a cloth-merchant, but i can use a cloak made of good homespun." richard looked up at his new friend with a face so bright with gratitude and relief that the young merchant laughed again. "what are you going to do with the penny?" he asked the boy, curiously. "i'd like to throw it in the river," said richard in sudden wrath. "then it would cheat no more poor folk." "they say that if you drop a coin in a stream it is a sign you will return," said edrupt, still laughing, "and we want neither waibling nor his money here again. suppose we nail it up by the market-cross for a warning to others? how would that be?" this was the beginning of a curious collection of coins that might be seen, some years later, nailed to a post in the market of king's barton. there were also the names of those who had passed them, and in time, some dishonest goods also were fastened up there for all to see. when richard saw the coin in its new place he gave a sigh of relief. "i'll be going home now," he said. "mother's alone, and she will be wanting me." "ride with me so far as dame lavender's," said the wool-merchant good-naturedly. "what's thy name, by the way?" "richard garland. father was a sailor, and his name was sebastian," said the boy soberly. "mother won't let me say he is drowned, but i'm afraid he is." "sebastian garland," repeated edrupt thoughtfully. "and so thy mother makes her living weaving wool, does she?" "aye," answered richard. "she's frae dunfermline last, but she was born in the highlands." "my wife's grandmother was scotch," said edrupt absently. he was trying to remember where he had heard the name sebastian garland. he set richard down after asking him where he lived, and took his own way home with barbara, his wife of a year. he told barbara that the town was well rid of a rascal, but she knew by his silence thereafter that he was thinking out a plan. "some day," he spoke out that evening, "there'll be a law in the land to punish these dusty-footed knaves. they go from market to market cheating poor folk, and we have no hold on them because we cannot leave our work. but about this lad richard garland, barbara, i've been a-thinking. what if we let him and his mother live in the little cottage beyond the sheepfold? the boy could help in tending the sheep. if they've had sheep o' their own they'll know how to make 'emselves useful, i dare say. and then, when these foreign fleeces come into the market, the dame could have dyes and so on, and we should see what kind o' cloth they make." this was the first change in the fortunes of richard garland and his mother. a little more than a year later sebastian garland, now captain of master gay's ship, the _rose-in-june_, of london, came into port and met robert edrupt. on inquiry edrupt learned that the captain had lost his wife and son many years before in a town which had been swept by the plague. when he heard of the highland-born woman living in the longley cottage, he journeyed post-haste to find her, and discovered that she was indeed his wife, and richard his son. by the time that richard was old enough to become a trader, a court known as the court of pied-poudre or dusty feet had been established by the king at every fair. its purpose was to prevent peddlers and wandering merchants from cheating the folk. the common people got the name "pie-powder court," but that made it none the less powerful. king henry also appointed itinerant justices--traveling judges--to go about from place to place and judge according to the king's law, with the aid of the sheriffs of the neighborhood who knew the customs of the people. the general instructions of these courts were that when the case was between a rich man and a poor man, the judges were to favor the poor man until and unless there was reason to do otherwise. the norman barons, coming from a country in which they had been used to be petty kings each in his own estate, did not like this much, but little the king cared for that. merchants like young richard garland found it most convenient to have one law throughout the land for all honest men. remembering his own hard boyhood, richard never failed to be both just and generous to a boy. perfumer's song the rule of the world is heavy and hard, taketh of every life a share, strive as it may to cherish and guard the dawning hope that was all so fair, and yet, so sure as the night-wind blows, memory dwells in her place apart, and the savor of rue or the breath of a rose brings peace out of trouble, dear heart, dear heart! there was never a joy that the world can kill so long as there lives a dream of the past, for the alchemist in his fragrant still keeps fresh the dream to the very last. so sure as the wind of the morning blows to heal the trouble, to cool the smart, the breath of lavender, thyme and rose will bring to thee comfort, dear heart, dear heart! [illustration] x mary lavender's garden how mary lavender came to be of service to an exiled queen mary lavender lived in a garden. that seems really the best way to say it. the house of dame annis lavender was hardly more than four walls and a roof, a green door and two small hooded windows. instead of the house having a garden the garden seemed rather to hold the cottage in a blossomy lap. a long time ago there had been a castle on the low hill above the cottage. it was a saxon castle, roughly built of great half-hewn stones, its double walls partly of tramped earth. nearly a century had passed since a norman baron had received the "hundred" in which the castle stood, as a reward for having helped duke william become william the conqueror. his domain was large enough for a hundred families to live on, getting their living from the land. the original saxon owner had fled to join hereward at ely, and he never came back. this rude saxon castle was not what the norman needed, at all. he must have, if he meant to be safe in this hostile land, a fortress much harder to take. he chose a taller hill just beyond the village, made it higher with most of the stone from the old castle, and built there a great square frowning keep and some smaller towers, with a double wall of stone, topped by battlements, round the brow of the hill, and a ditch around all. no stream being convenient to fill the moat he left it dry. here, where the saxon castle had been, was nothing but a dimpled green mound, starred over in spring with pink and white baby daisies, and besprinkled with dwarf buttercups and the little flower that english children call blue eyes. mary liked to take her distaff there and spin. the old castle had been built to guard a ford. the normans had made a stone bridge at a narrower and deeper point in the river, and dame annis and mary washed linen in the pool above the ford. the countryside had settled down to the rule of the normans with hardly more trouble than the dismantled mound. travelers often came over the new bridge and stayed at the inn on their way to or from london, and there were more than twice as many houses as there had been when mary's mother was a girl. older people complained that the country could never endure so much progress. this was a rather remote region, given over mainly to sheep-grazing. on the great extent of "common" still unfenced, the sheep wandered as they liked, and they often came nibbling about mary's feet as she sat on the mound. there had been a garden about the ancient castle--several, in fact: the herb-garden, the vegetable garden, and a sort of out-door nursery for fruits and berries. the last had been against a southward-facing wall and was nearly destroyed; but herbs are tenacious things, and the old roots had spread into the vegetable patch, and flowers had seeded themselves, until dame annis moved into the little cottage and began to make her living. most of the old-fashioned cottage-garden flowers could be found there. thrift raised its rose-red spikes in crevices of a ruined wall. bluebells, the wild hyacinths, made heavenly patches of color among the copses. great beds of mustard and lavender, in early summer, were like a purple-and-gold mantle flung down upon a field. presently violets bloomed in orderly rows in dame annis's new herb-garden, and roses were pruned and trimmed and trained over old walls and trees. it may seem odd that violets and roses should be among herbs. the truth is that very few flowers were cultivated in the early middle ages simply for ornament. violets were used to make perfume. roses were made into rose-water and also into rose conserve, a kind of sweetmeat of rose-petals, sugar and spice packed in little jars. marigolds were brought from the east by returning crusaders for use in broth. pennyroyal, feverfew, camomile, parsley, larkspur, and other flowers used to be grown for making medicine. one of the few herbs which grow in modern gardens, which the conqueror found in england when he came, is tansy. the name comes from a greek word meaning immortality. tansy was used to preserve meat, and to flavor various dishes. there were also sage, marjoram, thyme, and many other herbs of which dame annis did not know the names. one of the most precious finds that she made in her digging and transplanting was a root of woad. this plant was used for blue dye, and was so much in demand that england did not produce enough and had to import it. it was too valuable for her to use it herself; she cherished it and fed the soil, planting every seed, promising mary that some day she should have a gown dyed watchet blue, of linen from their own flax. mary was thinking about that gown as she sat spinning and listening to the hum of the bees. she knew exactly how it would be made from beginning to end. the flax would be soaked in the brook until the strong stem-fibers were all that were left; it would be hackled and washed and spun and finally woven by their neighbor, dame garland, for mary's mother had no loom. this neighbor was as poor as themselves, but they would pay her in herbs and dyestuffs. the leaves--not the flowers, which were yellow--from the woad, would be crushed into a paste and allowed to ferment, and finally made into little balls that would keep until needed. neither perfume nor dye could be bought in shops thereabouts, and there were no factories anywhere for making either. dame lavender had been, before she was married, maid to a great lady who had taught her women how to make such things out of the plants in the castle garden. now, when her husband failed to come back from the wars in france, she turned to the perfumer's trade as the one which she knew best. there are a great many ways of making perfume at home. if she had had a still, dame lavender could have made almost any sort of ordinary perfume, flavor or medicine. in this process, a mixture of blossoms, spices and drugs, or the blossoms alone, or the leaves, is cooked in a glass bottle called a retort, with a long glass tube fitted to it so that the steam must pass through the tube and cool in little drops. these drops run out into a glass flask and are the perfume. another way was to gather flowers when perfectly fresh and put them into a kettle of alcohol, which would take up the scent and keep it after the flowers are taken out. strong-scented flowers or leaves were put with salve in a jar and covered, to perfume the salve. dried plants of pleasant fragrance, mixed with salve, could be left until the scent had been taken up, then the whole could be melted and strained to remove the herbs. each herb and flower had to be gathered at the proper time, and dried in the little attic. with this business, and the honey which the bees made, and the spinning done by both mother and daughter, they managed to make a living. one day when they were at their busiest an old man came to the door and asked for a night's lodging. he had a gentle way of speaking, although his cloak was threadbare, and he seemed much interested in their work. he knew some of the plants which they had never been able to name, and told what they were good for. he seemed so old, poor and feeble, that although she really needed all the money she could earn, dame lavender refused the coin he offered her. she felt that if he fell ill somewhere, he might need it. the norman castle on the hill had not been really lived in for some ten years. there was a company of soldiers in it, with two or three knights who came and went, but that was all. it had been built as a fortress, and was one; and the situation was such that it could not easily be made into anything else. the baron who owned it was in attendance upon the king. then, one day, a rumor went floating about the village, like the scent of growing hedges in spring. it was said that the castle was to be set in order for some great lady; and that she would bring with her two or three maids perhaps, but most of the work was to be done by the people of the village. this was rather mystifying. mary wondered why a great lady should not rather choose to stay at the nunnery, where the lady abbess had all things seemly and well-planned. it was an old saxon religious house and not at all rich; but mary always liked to have an errand up minchen lane. the lane had got its name from the nuns, who were called "minchens" a long while ago. sometimes they sent to get some roots or plants from the garden of dame lavender. she had some kinds that they had not. it was nearly certain, at any rate, that the housekeeper at the castle would want lavender and violets, and dame annis told mary to get the besom and sweep out the still-room. this was a shed with a stone floor, the only room they had which was not used for living or sleeping. the room they had given their strange guest, tomaso of padua as he called himself, was the one where mary and her mother usually slept, and they had made up a pallet in the attic. mary worked briskly with her besom. it was just such a broom as english people still use to sweep garden walks, a bundle of twigs tied on a stick handle with a pliant osier. while she was at work she heard the gate shut, and saw old tomaso coming in. it cannot be said that she was exactly glad to see him. she felt that they might have all that they could do without a lodger just then. she spoke to him courteously, however, and he smiled as if he read her thoughts. "i have not come to ask for your hospitality this time," he said, "but to bring your good mother something in return for her kindness." beckoning to a boy who stood outside, he opened the gate, and the boy led in a little donkey laden with the basket-work saddle-bags called paniers. from these tomaso took all the parts of a still, some fine earthen and glass jars, flasks and bowls, and bundles of spice which were like a whole garden packed into a basket. "these," he said, "will be of assistance to your mother in her work. i see her coming now, and i will talk with her awhile." mary felt as if the earth had turned inside out when she heard the outcome of that conversation. the lady who was coming to the castle was eleanor of aquitaine, queen of england, and her coming was a considerable responsibility to every one concerned. she had been found just ready to join her sons, richard and geoffrey, in aquitaine, where they were fighting against their father, and she was to be shut up in this remote fortress, in charge of one of the king's most trusted knights, until he had disposed of the rebellion and had time to consider the case. she would not, she declared, spend her days in a nunnery, and the nuns of minchen lane were anything but anxious to have her. there was a room in the norman castle which could be fitted up as a still-room, and it was desirable to have whatever was needed made within the walls if possible. would mary undertake to go there and make herself useful, either in ways that might aid the cook, or in any other duties that she saw? the cook was an italian. the maids of honor were daughters of norman-french families. barbara edrupt, the wife of the wool-merchant who owned longley farm, was also, it appeared, going to lend a hand with the spinning and train one or two country girls for the rough work. it was no small task to maintain a royal lady in fitting state, even though she was a prisoner. it was more difficult here because there was little or nothing to do it with, and peddlers, merchants and other purveyors from distant london or paris might be a source of danger. dame annis lavender was rather doubtful, but she had confidence in mary, and it was settled that mary should go. she was to have the gown of blue sooner than she thought. the flax was already spun, dame garland did the weaving, and she and mary's mother dipped and dipped again until the web was a deep exquisite blue like a summer sky. barbara made mary a gift of a fair white linen cap and kerchief. the two girls, barbara with her black eyes and hair, mary with her gold-brown braids and calm blue eyes and wild-rose coloring, made a pretty picture together. so at least thought the troubadour who came riding by and saw them. he was in attendance upon the castellan, thibaut of toulouse, and a little group of maids and pages coming to make ready for the queen, who was expected to arrive the next day. thibaut's wife had been a provençal lady, and his daughter philippa, by whose side the troubadour was riding, was a trifle homesick for her childhood speech. she was very glad of ranulph's company. as they came past the garden she bent sidewise in her saddle and looked eagerly toward the gate. "do you see--there?" she cried. "that is a provence rose." "i will bring you some," the troubadour answered, and a moment later he was striding toward the two girls among the flowers. they had never seen any one like him,--so gay, so courteous and so straightforward. "i come to beg a rose," he said. "are not these the red roses of provence?" "surely," answered barbara. "i brought the bush from my own home, and gave mary a cutting. there never was such a rose for bloom and sweetness, we think. my husband he says so too." barbara blushed and smiled a little when she spoke of robert, and she and mary quickly filled a basket with the roses. the next morning ranulph came again with the provençal maid of honor to get more flowers, and "strowing herbs,"--sweet-scented plants that gave out their fragrance when trodden upon. the rushes used for floor-covering were often mixed with these on festival days, and when new rushes were to be put down the whole might be swept into the fire and burned. the maids of honor made garlands for the wall, and thus the first breath of air the queen drew in her grim, small stone rooms high in the castle keep, was laden with the scent of the blossoms of the south. it was a cheerless abode, mary and barbara thought. there were no hangings, no costly dishes nor candlesticks, no weapons or anything that could be made into a weapon, nor any jewels or rich clothing. mary wondered a little that certain richly embroidered tapestries which belonged to the nuns had not been borrowed, for she knew that the lady abbess had lent them now and then. philippa could have told her. "it is well," said the queen haughtily when she had seen her apartments, "that they have given me no gold-woven arras for my prison. i think i would burn it for the gold--if any of these jailers of mine could be bought perchance." the captivity of the royal prisoner was not, however, very severe. she sometimes rode out under guard, she was allowed to walk upon the terrace and in the walled garden, and she talked sometimes with the troubadour and with old tomaso. in one of the older towers of the castle the physician had his rooms, and here he read in ancient books, or brewed odd mixtures in his retorts and crucibles. he taught mary more about the management of a still, the use of herbs and the making of essences than she had ever dreamed there was to learn. physicians in those days might be quacks or alchemists. here and there one was what we call an experimental chemist. nearly a hundred years later some of tomaso's papers proved most valuable to the university of padua. pavement song all along the cobblestones by saint paul's, clippety-clack the music runs, quick footfalls, folk that go a-hurrying, all on business bent, they'll come to us in time, and we are content. so we keep our cobble-shop, by saint paul's hammer-stroke and wax-thread, chasing up the awls, cobbling is a merry trade,--we'll not change with you, we've leather good cheap, and all we can do! xi saint crispin's day how crispin, the shoemaker's son, made a shoe for a little damsel, and new streets in london "rip-rap--tip-tap- tick-a-tack--too! scarlet leather sewed together- thus we make a shoe!" --william allingham. london was a busy town when the long venetian galleys and the tall ships of spain anchored in the pool of the thames. leather and silk and linen and velvet and broadcloth came to the london wharves, and london people were busy buying, selling, making and decorating every sort of apparel, from the girdle to hold a sword to the silken hood and veil of a lady. and nobody was busier than the men who worked in leather. nowadays we go into a shop and try on shoes made perhaps a thousand miles away, until we find a pair that will fit. but when crispin eyre's father sold a pair of shoes he had seen those shoes made in his own shop, under his own eye, and chosen the leather. it might be calfskin from the yard of a tanner, who bought his hides from the man who had raised the calf on his farm, or it might be fine soft goatskin out of a bale from the galleons of spain. in either case he had to know all about leather, or he would not succeed in the shoe business. the man who aspired to be a master shoemaker had to know how to make the whole shoe. more different kinds of shoes were made in thomas eyre's shop than most shops sell to-day, and as he had begun to use the hammer and the awl when he was not yet ten years old, he knew how every kind should be made. early in the morning, before a modern family would be awake, hammers were going in the shoe-shops--tap-tap--tick-a-tack--tack! sometimes by the light of a betty lamp in the early winter evenings the journeymen would be still at work, drawing the waxed thread carefully and quickly through the leather. hand-sewn and made of well-tanned hide, such a shoe could be mended again and again before it was outworn. riding-boots, leather shoes, slippers, sandals, clogs, pattens, shoes of cloth, silk, morocco, cloth-of-gold, velvet, with soles made of wood, leather, cork and sometimes even iron, went to and fro in the shadow of st. paul's cathedral, and sooner or later every kind crossed the threshold of thomas eyre's shop. the well-to-do came to order shoes for themselves, and the wooden-shod and barefoot came to get the shoes others would wear. each trade kept to its own street, even in those early days. when the guilds had multiplied so that each part of each trade had its own workers, who were not supposed to do anything outside their trade, the man who made a shoe never mended one, and the cobbler never made anything. each trade had its guild hall, where the members met for business councils or holidays, and some of them had their favorite churches. it was like a very exclusive club. men and women belonged to these societies, they made rules about the length of time a man must work before he could be a master workman, and they took care of their own poor folk out of a common fund. each guild had its patron saint, connected in some way with the craft it represented. the especial saint of the shoemakers was st. crispin, and his day was the twenty-fifth of october. the leather workers were among the most important artisans of london, and in course of time each branch of the trade had its own guild hall. the cordwainers or leather workers took their name from cordova in spain, famous for its beautiful dyed, stamped, gilded and decorated leather. the saddlers had their hall, and the lorimers or harness-makers theirs, and the skinners and leather sellers and tanners had theirs. london was rather behind some of the cities on the continent, however, both in the number and the power of her guilds. king henry ii. was not over-inclined to favor guilds, especially in london, for london was too independent, as it was, to please him. he had observed that when cities grew so strong that they governed themselves they were quite likely to make trouble for kings, and not unnaturally, he felt that he had trouble enough on his hands as things were without inviting more. if he had allowed it london would have had a "commune," as the organization of a self-governing city was called, long ago. crispin heard this discussed more or less, for all sorts of chattering and story-telling went on in the shop, and he heard also many stories which tended to make him think. the popular tales and songs of the middle ages were not by any means always respectful to kings. the people understood very well that there were good monarchs and bad ones, and they were not blind to the reasons for the difference. the story that crispin liked best was the one about his own name, and on this october day, seated on his low bench beside simon, the oldest of his shoemakers, he asked for it again. "aye, i'll warrant," grunted simon, "an eyre would be a born shoemaker, and name him crispin---eh, lad, what be you after with that leather?" crispin's fingers were strong, if small, and he was busy with hammer and awl and waxed thread, making a little shoe. "just a shoe, simon--go on with the story," said the boy, with a little, shut-mouthed grin. simon fitted the sole to the boot he was making and picked up his hammer. "it was a long time ago--(tap-tap) when the emperor of rome was a-hunting down the blessed martyrs, that there were two brothers, crispin and crispian their names were, who lived in rome and did nothing but kindness to every one. but there be rascals--(trip-trip-trap!)--who do not understand kindness, and ever repay it with evil. one of such a sort lived in the same street as the two brothers, and secretly ran to tell the emperor that they were plotting against his life. then privately the wife of this evil-doer came and warned them, for that they had given her shoes to her feet. so they fled out of the city by night and came to france and dwelt in soissons, where the cathedral now is. "this england was a heathen country then, they say, and france not much better. before long the king of that kingdom heard of the strangers and sent for them to know what their business was. when they said that their business was to teach the people the story of our lord, he asked who this lord might be, and whether he was mightier than the king, or not. "then when the heathen king heard that the lord of crispin and crispian was more powerful than either king or emperor he had a mind to kill them, but he was afraid. he asked if they had ever seen a palace finer than his own, that was made of wood and hung with painted leather, and they said that there were finer ones in rome. then said the king, 'give me a sign of the greatness of your lord.' and they asked him what it should be. and the king said, 'cover the streets of my city with leather and you shall go forth unharmed.' only the rich had any leather in those parts. "that night crispin and crispian took the leather hide of their girdles and made a pair of shoes for the king. and when they came before him in the morning, they put the shoes upon his feet, the first shoes he had ever seen, and told him to walk abroad and he would find all the streets covered with leather." the apprentices had been listening, and a laugh went round the shop, as it always did at that part of the tale. "thus it came to pass," concluded simon, "that the two brothers lived at court and taught the king's leather workers how to make shoes, and that is why saint crispin is the friend of shoemakers." "what was the name of him who told you the tale, simon?" crispin asked thoughtfully. "oh, he is dead these many years, but his name was benet, and he came from soissons, and had been to rome and seen the street where the brothers lived. he had a nail out of one of the shoes they made for the king. people came to our house while he was with us, only to see that nail and hear the story. i heard it so many times that i learned it by heart." old simon drove in the last nail with a vicious stroke that sent it well into the leather. "i'll warrant," he said, "the blessed saint crispin made none o' them shoes we make here, with pointed toes and rose windows on the leather, fitten for a lady." he held up the shoe with great disfavor. it was for a courtier, and the toe was two feet long and turned up, with a chain to fasten it to the knee. the front of the shoe was cut into open work in a wheel shape to show the gay silken hose underneath, and the shoe itself was of soft fine leather. with a parting sniff, simon tossed it to a slim, grinning youth who would finish it by putting on gilding. the shoe that crispin was making was of a different sort. it was a little round-toed sturdy thing, about the right size for a child of ten. the mate to it was on the bench at his side, and he put them together and looked at them rather ruefully. the shoe he had made was plain, and the other was trimmed daintily with red morocco and cut in a quaint round pattern on the toe--the decoration that was known as "a paul's window," because the geometric cut-work with the colored lining looked like stained glass. crispin frowned and shook his head. "what's ailin' ye, lad?" old simon peered at the shoes in the boy's hands. "bless ye, those ben't mates!" "i know that, but i haven't any colored leather for this one even if i knew how to finish it," crispin said with a sigh. "um-m-m!" simon looked more closely at the little gay shoe. "that never came from these parts. that's turkey leather." he gave crispin a sharp glance. the great bell of bow was ringing and the apprentices were quitting work. "where did this shoe come from, now?" crispin hesitated. "don't you tell, now, simon. i found a little maid crying in candlewick street--standing on one foot like a duck because she had lost her other shoe. she was so light i could lift her up, and i set her on a wall while i looked for the shoe, but it wasn't any good, for a horse had stepped on it. she cried so about the shoe that i--i said i would make her another. and then her father came back for her and took her away." "who might she be?" inquired simon dryly. "i don't know. i didn't tell father. she said she would send for the shoes though." simon had been rummaging in a leather bag behind his bench. "if she don't there's plenty of other little wenches that wear shoes. if the leather should be blue in place o' red, would that matter?" "i shouldn't think so; one shoe is no good alone." crispin began to be hopeful. old simon pulled out some pieces of soft fine leather the color of a harebell and began to cut them quickly and deftly into fine scalloped borders. "this ben't turkey leather, but it is a piece from spain, and they learnt the trade of the paynim, so i reckon 'twill do. stitch this on the other shoe in place o' the red, and i'll cut the pattern." nobody would have believed that simon's old, crooked fingers could handle a knife so cleverly. in no time the pattern on the old shoe had been copied exactly on the new one. when crispin had stitched the blue cut-work border on both, and simon had rubbed the new leather on some old scraps and cleaned the old a bit, the two little shoes looked like twins. "is there a boy here named crispin eyre?" inquired a man's voice from the doorway. almost at the same time came the sweet lilting speech of a little girl, "oh, father, that is the boy who was so kind to me!" crispin and old simon stood up and bowed, for the man who spoke was a dignified person in the furred cloak and cap of a well-to-do merchant. the little girl held fast to her father's hand and gazed into the shop with bright interest. "look at the shoes, father, aren't they pretty?" the merchant balanced the little shoes in his broad hand. "which did you lose, genevieve, child?" "i--i don't know, father," the child said, pursing her soft lips. "cannot you tell?" "by my faith," said the merchant thoughtfully, "if a london shoemaker's boy does work like this i doubt edrupt may be right when he says our ten fingers are as good as any. this shoe is one of a pair from cordova. who's your father, lad?" "my father is thomas eyre, so please you, master," said the boy proudly, "and i am crispin." "a good craft and a good name and a good workman," said the merchant, and dropped a coin into the litter of leather scraps. it was the full price of a new pair of shoes. crispin certainly could not have dreamed that his kindness to little genevieve gay would be the occasion of new streets in london, but it happened so. master gay, the merchant, came later to talk with thomas eyre about the shoe trade. then, instead of sending a cargo of irish hides abroad he gave eyre the choice of them. other shoemakers took the rest, the shoe trade of london grew, and so did the tanneries. the tanners presently needed more room by running water, and sought new quarters outside london wall. the business of london kept on growing until the leatherworkers' guild had presently to send abroad for their own raw material. england became more and more a manufacturing country and less a farming country. in one or another trade almost every farming product was of use. hides were made into leather, beef went to the cook-shops; horn was made into drinking-cups and lantern-lights, bones were ground or burnt for various purposes, tallow made candles. what the farmer had been used to do for himself on his farm, the guilds began to do in companies, and their farm was england. concealed weapons the tiniest weed that blooms in fallow ground arms all its children for the battle-field. its myriad warriors weapon'd cap-a-pie swarm forth upon the land. the bursting pods their elfin shrapnel scatter far and wide. aerial scouts on downy pinions flit, and awns prick lancet-wise, and clutching burs grapple the fleeces of the wandering sheep, invade the farm-lands and possess the soil. the curse of eden falling on the flowers drove them to self-defense and made the world one vast weed-garden. yea, more dreadful still, buried within the heart of many a plant lie deadly drops of poisonous essences, nightshade and spearwort, aconite and poppy, that slay more swift and sure than tempered steel. the least of little folk, or soon or late, may by such hidden terrors rule the great. the least of little folk, unseen, unknown, may find that saving strength is theirs alone. xii the lozenges of giovanni how a milanese baker-boy and a paduan physician kept poison out of the king's dish ranulph the troubadour was riding along a lonely moorland trail, singing softly to himself. in so poor a neighborhood there was little fear of robbers, and the barbary horse which he had under him could outrun most other horses. the light-stepping hoofs made little noise upon the springy turf, and as the song ended he heard some one sobbing behind a group of stunted bushes. he halted and listened. the sound ceased. "ho there, little one--what is the trouble?" he spoke in saxon, the language of the country folk, but at the first words a figure sprang up and dodged from shrub to rock like a scared leveret. he called again quickly in french: "hola! little friend, wait a moment!" there was no answer. somehow he did not like to leave the mystery unsolved. there must be a child in trouble, but what child could there be in this wild place, and neither norman nor saxon? it was not far enough to the west to be welsh borderland, and it was too far south to be near either scotland or the danelaw. he spoke in provençal, and the fugitive halted at the sound of the soft southern o's and a's; then he spoke again in the lombard dialect of milan. a boy ventured out of the thicket and stood staring at him. ranulph flung himself off his horse and held out his hand. "come here, little comrade, and tell me who you are, and why you are all alone here." the boy's dark eyes grew wider in his elvish face and his hands opened and shut nervously as he answered in italian: "i am no one, and i have no home. take me not to prison." "there is no thought of a prison, my lad, but i cannot wait here. come, ride with me, and i will take you to a kind woman who will take care of you." the boy hesitated, but at last loneliness conquered timidity and distrust, and he came. the troubadour swung him up to the front of the saddle and they rode on through the gathering dusk. forgetting his terror as he heard the familiar sound of his native tongue, the boy told his story readily enough. his name was giovanni bergamotto, but he had been born in milan, in the year that barbarossa crossed the alps. the first thing that he could really remember was his mother crying over her father and two brothers, who had been killed in the siege. he remembered many days when there was nothing to eat in the house. when milan was taken he was old enough to walk at his mother's side as the people were driven out and the city destroyed so that no one should ever live there again. his father had been killed when the emperor hung a siege-tower all over with hostages and captives to be shot at by their own people within the walls. he remembered his grandfather lifting him up to see when the carocchio was brought out, and the great crucifix above the globe was lowered to do homage to the emperor. he remembered seeing the imperial banner unfurled from the top of the cathedral. these things, his grandfather told him, no milanese should ever forget. he and his mother had wandered about from one city to another until his mother died, two or three years later. he had worked for a pastry cook who beat him and starved him. at last he had run away and stolen his passage on a ship bound for england. they had beaten him when they found him, but kept him to help the cook. when he landed at a southern port on the english coast, he had found himself in a land of cold mist, where no sun shone, no fruit grew, and no one knew his language. he had turned at first naturally to the towns, for he was a city boy and craved the companionship of the crowd. but when he said that he was a lombard they seemed to be angry. perhaps there was some dreadful mistake, and he was in a land where the ghibellines, the friends of the emperor, were the rulers. when at last he faltered out this question his new friend gave a compassionate little laugh and patted his shoulder reassuringly. "no, little one, there is no fear of that. this is england, and the english king rules all the people. we have neither guelf nor ghibelline. a red rose here--is just a rose," he added as he saw giovanni's questioning look at the crimson rose in his cap. red roses were the flower of the guelf party in north-italian cities, as the white rose was the badge of the ghibellines who favored the imperial party; and the cities were divided between the two and fiercely partisan. "the lombards in london," ranulph went on, "are often money-lenders, and this the people hate. that is why thy black hair and eyes and thy lombard tongue made them suspect thee, little comrade." giovanni gave a long sigh of relief and fell silent, and when he was lifted off the horse at the door of dame lavender he had to be shaken awake to eat his supper. then he was put to bed in a corner of the attic under the thatched roof, and the fragrance of well-known herbs and flowers came stealing into his dreams on the silent wind of the night. language is not needed when a boy finds himself in the home of a born mother. all the same, giovanni felt still more as if he must have waked up in heaven when he found sitting by the hearth a kind, grave old man who was himself an italian, and to whom the tragedy of the downfall of milan was known. tomaso the physician told dame lavender all about it while giovanni was helping mary sort herbs in the still-room. mary had learned a little of the physician's language and knew what he liked, and partly by signs, partly in hobbling italian, they arrived at a plan for making a vegetable soup and cooking a chicken for dinner in a way that giovanni knew. as the fragrance of the simmering broth came in at the door tomaso sniffed it, smiled and went to see what the little waif was about. standing in the doorway he watched giovanni slicing garlic and nodded to himself. men had died of a swift dagger-thrust in a bye-street of lombardy because they cut an onion or ate an orange in the enemy's fashion. by such small signs were guelf and ghibelline known. "my boy," said the old physician, when dinner was over and giovanni, pleased beyond measure at the compliments paid his cooking, was awaiting further orders, "do you know that milan is going to be rebuilt?" the milanese boy's pinched white face lighted with incredulous rapture. "rebuilt?" he stammered. "some day," said tomaso. "the people of four lombard cities met in secret and made that vow not three years after the emperor gained his victory. they have built a city at the joining of two rivers, and called it alexandria after the pope whom he drove out of rome. he still has his own governors in the cities that he conquered, but the league is gaining every month. milan will be once more the queen of the midland--perhaps before very long. but it is a secret." "they may kill me," giovanni stammered, "but i will not tell. i will never tell." tomaso smiled. "i knew that, my son," he said. "that is why i spoke of this to you. you may talk freely to me or to ranulph the troubadour, but to no one else unless we give you leave. you must be patient, wise and industrious, and fit yourself to be a true citizen of the commune. for the present, you must be a good subject of the english king, and learn the language." giovanni hid the precious secret in his heart during the months that followed, and learned both english and french with a rapidity that astonished dame lavender. he had a wisdom in herbs and flowers, too, that was almost uncanny. in the kitchen-gardens of the great houses where he had been a scullion, there were many plants used for perfumes, flavorings or coloring fluids, which were quite unknown to the english cook. he was useful to dame lavender both in the garden and the still-room. he knew how to make various delicious cakes as well, and how to combine spices and honey and syrups most cunningly, for he had seen pastry-cooks and confectioners preparing state banquets, and he never forgot anything he had seen. the castle which crowned the hill in the midst of the small town where dame lavender lived had lately been set in order for the use of a very great lady--a lady not young, but accustomed to luxury and good living--and all the resources of dame lavender's garden had been taxed to provide perfumes, ointments and fresh rose-leaves, for the linen-presses and to be strewn about the floors. mary and her mother had all that they could do in serving queen eleanor. the queen was not always easy to please. in her youth she had traveled with crusaders and known the strange cities of the east; she had escaped once from a castle by night, in a boat, to free herself from a too-persistent suitor. she was not one of the meek ladies who spent their days in needlework, and as for spinning and weaving, she had asked scornfully if they would have her weave herself a hair shirt like a hermit. mary lavender was not, of course, a maid of honor, but she found that the queen seemed rather to like having her about. "i wish i had your secret, marie of the flowers," said graceful philippa, one weary day. "tell me what you do, that our lady the queen likes so well." mary smiled in her frank, fearless way. "it may be," she answered, "that it is the fragrance of the flowers. she desires now to embroider red roses for a cushion, and i have to ask master tomaso how to dye the thread." the embroidering of red roses became popular at once, but soon there was a new trouble. the queen began to find fault with her food. "this cook flavors all his dishes alike," she said pettishly. "he thinks that colored toys of pastry and isinglass feed a man's stomach. when the king comes here--although he never knows what is set before him, that is true,--i would like well to have a fit meal for his gentlemen. tell this beppo that if he cannot cook plain toothsome dishes i will send for a farmer's wench from longley farm." this was the first that had been heard of the king's intended visit, and great was the excitement in the kitchen. ranulph dismounted at the door of dame lavender's cottage and asked for giovanni. beppo the cook had been calling for more help, and the local labor market furnished nothing that suited him. would giovanni come? he would do anything for ranulph and for mary. "that is settled, then," laughed ranulph. "i shall not have to scour the country for a scullion with hands about him instead of hoofs or horns." in his fourteen years of poverty the little italian had learned to hold his tongue and keep his eyes open. beppo was glad enough to have a helper who did not have to be told anything twice, and in the hurry-scurry of the preparations giovanni made himself useful beyond belief. the cakes, however, did not suit the queen. mary came looking for giovanni in the kitchen-garden. "vanni," she said, "will you make some of your lozenges for the banquet? beppo says you may. i think that perhaps his cakes are not simple enough, and i know that the king likes plain fare." giovanni turned rather white. "very well, mistress mary," he answered. giovanni's lozenges were not candies, although they were diamond-shaped like the lozenges that are named after them. they were cakes made after the recipe still used in some italian bakeries. he pounded six ounces of almonds; then he weighed eight eggs and put enough pounded sugar in the opposite scale to balance them; then he took out the eggs and weighed an equal amount of flour, and of butter. he melted the butter in a little silver saucepan. the eggs were not beaten, because egg-beaters had not been invented; they were strained through a sieve from a height into a bowl, and thus mixed with air. two of the eggs were added to the pounded almonds, and then the whole was mixed with a wooden spoon in a wooden bowl. the paste was spread on a thin copper plate and baked in an oven built into the stone wall and heated by a fireplace underneath. while still warm the cake was cut into diamond-shaped pieces, called lozenges after the carved stone memorial tablets in cathedrals. the queen approved them, and said that she would have those cakes and none other for the banquet, but with a little more spice. beppo, who had paid the sweetmeats a grudging compliment, produced some ground spice from his private stores and told giovanni to use that. "vanni," said mary laughing as she passed through the kitchen on the morning of the great day, "do you always scour your dishes as carefully as this?" the boy looked up from the copper plate which he was polishing. mary thought he looked rather somber for a cook who had just been promoted to the office of baker to the king. "things cannot be too clean," he said briefly. "mistress mary, will you ask master tomaso for some of the spice that he gave to your mother, for me?" mary's blue eyes opened. surely a court cook like beppo ought to have all the spice needed for a simple cake like this. however, she brought giovanni a packet of the fragrant stuff an hour later, and found beppo fuming because the work was delayed. the basket of selected eggs had been broken, the melted butter had been spilled, and the cakes were not yet ready for the oven. giovanni silently and deftly finished beating his pastry, added the spice, rolled out the dough, began the baking. when the cakes came out of the oven, done to a turn, and with a most alluring smell, he stood over them as they cooled and packed them carefully with his own hands into a basket. mary lavender came through the kitchen just as the last layer was put in. "those are beautiful cakes, vanni," she said kindly. "i am sure they are fit for the king. did you use the spice i gave you?" giovanni's heart gave a thump. he had not reckoned on the fact that simple mary had grown up where there was no need of hiding a plain truth, and now beppo would know. the cook turned on him. "what? what?" he cried. "you did not use my spices? you take them and do not use them?" mary began to feel frightened. the cook's black eyes were flashing and his mustache bristling with excitement, until he looked like the cross cat on the border of the queen's book of fables. but giovanni was standing his ground. "i used good spice," he said firmly. "try and see." he held out one of the cakes to beppo, who dashed it furiously to the ground. "where are my spices?" he shrieked. "you meant to steal them?" he dashed at the lad and seized him as if to search for the spices. giovanni shook in his grasp like a rat in the jaws of a terrier, but he did not cringe. "i sent that packet of spice to master tomaso an hour ago," he gasped defiantly, "asking him if it was wholesome to use in the kitchen--and here he is now." at sight of the old physician standing calm as a judge in the doorway, beppo bolted through the other door, seized a horse that stood in the courtyard and was gone before the astonished servants got their breath. "what is all this?" inquired tomaso. "i came to warn that man that the packet of spice which you sent is poison. where did you get it?" "the cook bought it of a peddler and gave it to vanni," answered mary, scared but truthful. "you all heard him say that he did," she added to the bystanders. "he told vanni to use it in these cakes, but vanni used the spice you gave us." "i have seen that peddler before," gasped giovanni. "he tried to bribe me to take the queen a letter and a packet, and i would not. i put some of the spice in honey, and the flies that ate of it died. then i sent it to you." "it was a subtle device," said tomaso slowly. "the spice would disguise the flavor. every one knew that giovanni was to make the cakes, and that the queen will not come to the banquet. when it is served do you send each sauce to me for testing. we will have no poison in the king's dish." the plot, as tomaso guessed, had not been born of the jealousy of a cook, but of subtler brains beyond the seas. the queen might well have been held responsible if the poison had worked. but when she heard of it she wept. "i have not been loyal," she flung out, in tearful defiance, "but i would not have done that--never that!" [illustration] a song of birds and beasts i gaed awa' to holyrood and there i built a kirk, and a' the birds of a' the air they helpit me to work. the whaup wi' her lang bill she dug up the stane, the dove wi' her short bill she brought it hame, the pyet was a wily bird and raised up the wa', the corby was a silly bird and she gar'd it fa', and bye cam' auld tod lowrie and skelpit them a'! i gaed and i gaed and i cam' to london town, and a' the beasts of a' the earth were met to pull it down. the cock wi' his loud voice he raised a fearfu' din, the dragon he was dumb, but he creepit slyly in, the ramping tramping unicorn he clattered at the wa', the bear he growled and grumbled and scrabbled wi' his claw, till bye cam' auld tod lowrie and dang them a'! the leopard and the wolf they were fechtin' tooth and nail, the bear wad be a lion but he couldna raise a tail, the geese they heard the brattle and yammered loud and lang, the corby flyin' owre them he made his ain sang. the lion chased the unicorn by holt and by glen, tod lowrie met the hounds and he bade them come ben- but the auld red rascal had twa holes tae his den! the wolf lap in the fold and made havoc wi' the flock, the corby cleaned the banes in his howf on the rock, the weasel sacked the warren but he couldna grow fat, the cattie met a pullet and they never found that. they made a wicker boothie and they tethered there a goose, and owre the wee bit lintel they hung a braided noose,- but auld tod lowrie he sat in his ain hoose! note: there is a pun in the third verse, as "tail" is an old word for a retinue or following. albert the bear was margrave of brandenburg, the leopard was the emblem of anjou, and the wolf in medieval fables stands for the feudal baron. the unicorn was the legendary beast of scotland, and the dragon that of wales. the cock stands for france. henry ii. is satirized as the bold and cunning fox, tod lowrie. the allusion to the trap in the last three lines is to the offer of the throne of the holy roman empire to the english monarch, during a time of general international hostility and disorder. xiii a dyke in the danelaw how david le saumond changed the course of an ancient nuisance farmer appleby was in what he called a fidget. he did not look nervous, and was not. but the word, along with several others he sometimes used, had come down to him from scandinavian forefathers. the very name with its ending "by" showed that his farm was a part of the danelaw. along the coast, and in the part of england fronting the north sea, danish invaders had imposed their own laws and customs on the country, and were strong enough to hold their own even in the face of a saxon king. it was only a few years since the danegeld, the tax collected from all england to ward off the raids of danish sea-rovers, had been abolished. but ralph appleby was as good an englishman as any. little by little the danelaw was yielding to the common law of england, but that did not worry an appleby. he did not trouble the law courts, nor did they molest him. the cause of his fidget was a certain law of nature by which water seeks the shortest way down. one side of his farm lay along the river. like most of the danish, norse, icelandic or swedish colonists, his long-ago ancestor had settled on a little river in a marsh. first he made camp on an island; then he built a house on the higher bank. then the channel on the near side of the island filled up, and he planted the rich soil that the river had brought with orchards, and pastured fat cattle in the meadows. three hundred years later the applebys owned one of the most prosperous farms in the neighborhood. now and then, however, the river remembered that it had a claim on that land. the soil, all bound and matted with tough tree-roots and quitch-grass, could not be washed away, but the waters took their toll in produce. the year before the orchards had been flooded and two-thirds of the crop floated off. a day or two later, when the flood subsided, the apples were left to fatten farmer kettering's hogs, rooting about on the next farm. hob kettering's stubborn little saxon face was all a-grin when he met barty appleby and told of it. it speaks well for the friendship of the two boys that there was not a fight on the spot. that was not all. the stone dyke between the river and the lowlands had been undermined by the tearing current, and must be rebuilt, and there were no stone-masons in the neighborhood. each farmer did his own repairing as well as he could. the houses were of timber, plaster, some brick and a little rude masonry. there were not enough good masons in the country to supply the demand, and even in building castles and cathedrals the stone was sometimes brought, ready cut, from france. in some parts of england the people used stone from old roman walls, or built on old foundations, but in roman times this farm had been under water in the marsh. the building of lincoln cathedral meant a procession of stone-barges going up the river loaded with stone for the walls, quarried in portland or in france. when landed it was carried up the steep hill to the site of the building, beyond reach of floods that might sap foundations. it was slow work building cathedrals in marsh lands. the farmer was out in his boat now, poling up and down along the face of the crumbling wall, trying to figure on the amount of stone that would be needed. he never picked a stone out of his fields that was not thrown on a heap for possible wall-building, but most of them were small. it would take several loads to replace what the river had stolen--and then the whole thing might sink into the mud in a year or two. "hech, master!" said a voice overhead. "are ye wantin' a stone-mason just now?" ralph appleby looked up. on the little bridge, peering down, was a freckled, high-cheek-boned man with eyes as blue as his own, and with a staff in one big, hard-muscled hand. he wore a rough, shabby cloak of ancient fashion and had a bundle on his shoulder. "i should say i be," said the surprised farmer. "be you wanting the job?" the stranger was evidently a scot, from his speech, and scots were not popular in england then. still, if he could build a wall he was worth day's wages. "what's yer name?" appleby added. "just david," was the answer. "i'm frae dunedin. there's muckle stone work there." "i make my guess they've better stuff for building than that pile o' pebbles," muttered the farmer, leaping ashore and kicking with his foot the heap of stone on the bank. "i've built that wall over again three times, now." the newcomer grinned, not doubtfully but confidently, as if he knew exactly what the trouble was. "we'll mend all that," he said, striding down to peer along the water-course. the wriggling stream looked harmless enough now. "you've been in england some time?" queried appleby. "aye," said david. "i learned my trade overseas and then i came to the minster, but i didna stay long. me and the master mason couldna make our ideas fit." barty, sorting over the stones, gazed awestruck at the stranger. such independence was unheard-of. "what seemed to be the hitch?" asked the farmer coolly. "he was too fond o' making rubble serve for buildin' stone," said david. "then he'd face it with portland ashlars to deceive the passer-by." "ye'll have no cause to worry over that here," said ralph appleby dryly. "i'm not using ashlars or whatever ye call them, in my orchard wall. good masonry will do." "ashlar means a building stone cut and dressed," explained david. "i went along that wall of yours before you came. if you make a culvert up stream with a stone-arched bridge in place of the ford yonder, ye'll divert the course of the waters from your land." "if i put a bridge over the wash, i could make a weir to catch salmon," said the startled farmer. "i've no cut stone for arches." "we'll use good mortar and plenty of it, that's all," said david. "i'll show ye." the things that david accomplished with rubble, or miscellaneous scrap-stone, seemed like magic to barty. he trotted about at the heels of the mason, got very tired and delightfully dirty, asked numberless questions, which were always answered, and considered david the most interesting man he had ever met. david solved the building-stone problem by concocting mortar after a recipe of his own and using plenty of it between selected stones. sometimes there seemed to be almost as much mortar as there was stone, but the wedge-shaped pieces were so fitted that the greater the pressure on the arch the firmer it would be. laborers were set to work digging a channel to let the stream through this gully under the arches, and it seemed glad to go. "when i'm a man, david," announced barty, lying over the bridge-rail on his stomach and looking down at the waters that tore through the new channel, "i shall be a mason just like you. the river can't get our apples now, can it?" david grinned. "water never runs up hill," he said. "and it will run down hill if it takes a thousand years. you learn that first, if you want to be a mason, lad." "but everybody knows that," barty protested. "two and two mak' four, but if you and me had twa aipples each, and i ate one o' mine, and pit the ither with yours to mak' fower and you didna find it out it wad be a sign ye didna know numbers," retorted david, growing more and more scotch as he explained. "and when i see a mason lay twa-three stones to twa-three mair and fill in the core wi' rubble i ken he doesna reckon on the water seeping in." "but you've put rubble in those arches, david," said barty, using his eyes to help his argument. "spandrel, spandrel, ye loon," grunted david. "ye'll no learn to be a mason if ye canna mind the names o' things. the space between the arch and the beam's filled wi' rubble and good mortar, but the weight doesna rest on that--it's mostly on the arches where we used the best of our stanes. and there's no great travel ower the brig forbye. it's different with a cathedral like yon. ye canna build siccan a mighty wall wi' mortar alone. the water's aye searchin' for a place to enter. when the rocks freeze under the foundations they crumble where the water turns to ice i' the seams. when the rains come the water'll creep in if we dinna make a place for it to rin awa' doon the wa'. that's why we carve the little drip-channels longways of the arches, ye see. a wall's no better than the weakest stane in it, lad, and when you've built her you guard her day and night, summer and winter, frost, fire and flood, if you want her to last. and a minster like york or lincoln--the sound o' the hammer about her walls winna cease till judgment day." barty looked rather solemnly at the little, solid, stone-arched bridge, and the stone-walled culvert. while it was a-building david had explained that if the stream overflowed here it would be over the reedy meadows near the river, which would be none the worse for a soaking. the orchards and farm lands were safe. the work that they had done seemed to link itself in the boy's mind to cathedral towers and fortress-castles and the dykes of flanders of which david had told. the loose stone from the ruined wall was used to finish a wall in a new place, across the corner of the land by which the river still flowed. this would make a wharf for the boats. "this mortar o' yours might ha' balked the flood o' noah, belike," said farmer appleby, when they were mixing the last lot. "i wasna there, and i canna say," said david. "but there's a way to lay the stones that's worth knowing for a job like this. let's see if ye ken your lesson, young chap." david's amusement at barty's intense interest in the work had changed to genuine liking. the boy showed a judgment in what he did, which pleased the mason. he had always built walls and dams with the stones he gathered when his father set him at work. his favorite playground was the stone-heap. now he laid selected stones so deftly and skillfully that the tiny wall he was raising was almost as firm as if mortar had been used. "you lay the stones in layers or courses," he explained, "the stretcher stones go lengthwise of the wall and the head-stones with the end on the face of the wall, and you lay first one and then the other, 'cordin' as you want them. when the big stones and the little ones are fitted so that the top of the layer is pretty level it's coursed rubble, and that's better than just building anyhow." "what wey is it better?" interposed david. barty pondered. "it looks better anyhow. and then, if you want to put cut stone, or beams, on top, you're all ready. besides, it takes some practice to lay a wall that way, and you might as well be practicing all you can." the two men chuckled. a part of this, of course, farmer appleby already knew, but he had never explained to barty. the boy went on. "the stones ought to be fitted so that the face of the wall is laid to a true line. if you slope it a little it's stronger, because that makes it wider at the bottom. but if you slope it too much the water won't run off and the snow will lie. if you've got any big stones put them where they will do the most good, 'cause you want the wall to be strong everywhere. a bigger stone that is pretty square, like this, can be a bond stone, and if you use one here and there it holds the wall together. david says the english gener'lly build a stone wall with a row of headers and then a row of stretchers, but in flanders they lay a header and then a stretcher in every row." "how many loads of stone will it take for this wall?" asked david. barty hesitated, measured with his eye, and then made a guess. "how much mortar?" he guessed again. the estimate was so near farmer appleby's own figures that he was betrayed into a whistle of surprise. "he's gey canny for a lad," said david, grinning. "he's near as wise as me. we've been at that game for a month." "never lat on, but aye lat owre, twa and twa they aye mak' fowre." barty quoted a rhyme from david. "i reckon you've earned over and above your pay," said farmer appleby. he foresaw the usefulness of all this lore when barty was a little older. the boy could direct a gang of heavy-handed laborers nearly as well as he could. "any mason that's worth his salt will dae that," said david, unconcernedly. barty was experimenting with his stone-laying when a hunting-party of strangers came down the bridle-path from the fens, where they had been hawking for a day. the fame of the appleby culvert had spread through the country, and people often came to look at it, so that no one was surprised. the leader of the group was a middle-aged stout man, with close-clipped reddish hair, a full curly beard and a masterful way of speaking; he had a bow in his hand, and paced to and fro restlessly even when he was talking. "who taught you to build walls, my boy?" asked a young man with bright dark eyes and a citole over his shoulder. "david," said barty. "he's a scot. when he was in france they called him david saumond because of his leaping. he can dance fine." "and who taught david?" inquired the stranger. "the birds," barty answered with a grin. "there's a song." "let's have it," laughed the minstrel, and barty sang. "i gaed awa' to holyrood, and there i bug a kirk, and a' the birds o' a' the air they helpit me to work. the whaup wi' her lang bill she pried out the stane, the dove wi' her short bill she brought them hame, the pyet was a wily bird and bug up the wa', the corby was a silly bird and pu'd it down ava, and then cam' auld tod lowrie and skelpit them a'." "what's all that, ranulph?" queried the masterful man, pausing in his walk. ranulph translated, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, for there was more in the song than barty knew. each of the birds stood for one or another of the scotch lords who had figured in the recent trouble between william of scotland and the english king, and tod lowrie is the popular scotch name for the red fox. it is not every king who cares to hear himself called a fox to his face, even if he behaves like one. david and farmer appleby, coming through the orchard, were rather aghast. as they came to a halt, and made proper obeisance to their superiors, the king addressed david in norman such as the common folk used. "so you hold it folly to pull down a wall? there's not one stone left on another in milan since frederick barbarossa took the city." "ou ay," said david coolly. "if he had to build it up again he'd no be so blate, i'm thinkin'." the king laughed and so did the others. "i wish i had had you seven years ago," he said, "when we dyked the loire. there were thirty miles of river bank at angers, flooded season after season, when a well-built river wall would have saved the ruin. a man that can handle rubble in a marsh like this ought to be doing something better." "i learned my trade on that dyke," said david. "they norman priors havena all learned theirs yet. i was at the minster yonder, and if i'd built my piers like they said, the water would ha' creepit under in ten years' time." "and in ten years, that prior hopes to be archbishop without doubt," said the king with a shrug. "was that all?" "nay," said david. "their ashlars are set up for vanity and to be seen o' men. ye must have regard to the disposition of the building-stone when ye build for good an' all. it doesna like to be stood up just anyhow. let it lie as it lay in the quarry, and it's content." barty was watching the group, his blue eyes blazing and the apple-red color flushing his round cheeks. the king was talking to david as if he were pleased, and david, though properly respectful, was not in the least afraid. the plantagenets were a race of building kings. they all knew a master mason when they saw him. "so you changed the ancient course of the flood into that culvert, did you?" the king inquired, with a glance at the new channel. "aye," said david. "no man can rule the watters of the heavens, and it's better to dyke a flood than to dam it, if ye can." the king, with a short laugh, borrowed tablet and ink-horn from his scribe and made a note or two. [illustration: "'it is time to set him building for england'"] "when i find a scotch mason with an english apprentice building norman arches in the danelaw," said henry, "it is time to set him building for england. i hear that william, whom they call the englishman, is at work in canterbury. when you want work you may give him this, and by the sight of god have a care that there is peace among the building-stones." david must have done so, for on one of the stones in a world-famed cathedral may be seen the mason's mark of david le saumond and the fish which is his token. london bridge (1066) it was almost an hundred years ago, when ethelred was king. this town of london was held by danes. olaf the king of norway came with his host to fight for ethelred and with his galleys rowed beneath the bridge, lashed cables round the piers, and caught the tide that lent the strength of ocean to their strength rowing down-stream. ah, how the strong oars beat the waters into foam--and how the danes above upon the bridge fought furiously with stones and arrows--but the bridge went down- the bridge went down. so ethelred was king. and now the bridge has been built up again. 'tis not a thing of timbers, or hewn stone; it is a weaving of men's hopes and dreams from shore to shore. it is a thing alive. the men of surrey and the men of kent, the men of sussex and northumberland, the shepherds of the downs, the wealden forges, fishermen, packmen, bargemen, masons, all the traffickers of england, made our bridge. it is a thing enchanted by the thoughts of all our people. [illustration] xiv at bartlemy fair how barty appleby went to the fair at smith field and caught a miscreant the farmer's life is a very varied one, as any one who ever lived on a farm is aware. in some seasons the work is so pressing that the people hardly stop to eat or sleep. at other times nature herself takes a hand, and the farmer has a chance to mend walls, make and repair harness, clear woodland and do some hedging and ditching while the land is getting ready for the next harvest. this at any rate was the way in medieval england, and the latter part of august between haying and harvest was a holiday time. barty appleby liked saint bartholomew's day, the twenty-fourth of august, best of all the holidays of the year. it was the feast of his name-saint, when a cake was baked especially for him. yule-tide was a merry season, but to have a holiday of one's very own was even pleasanter. on the day that he was twelve years old barty was to have a treat which all the boys envied him. he was to go to bartlemy fair at smithfield by london. david saumond, the stone-mason who had built their orchard-wall, was going beyond london to canterbury to work at the cathedral. farmer appleby had a sister living in london, whom he had not seen for many years, and by this and by that he decided to go with david as far as london bridge. the fairs held on one and another holiday during the year were great markets for old england. nearly all of them were called after some saint. it might be because the saint was a patron of the guild or industry which made the fair prosperous; saint blaize was the patron of the wool-combers, saint eloy of the goldsmiths, and so on. it was often simply a means of making known the date. people might not know when the twenty-ninth of september came, if they could not read; but they were very likely to know how long it was to saint michael's day, or michaelmas, because the quarter's rent was due at that time. june 24, the feast of saint john the baptist, was midsummer quarter day, and in every month there were several saints' days which one or another person in any neighborhood had good cause for remembering. st. bartholomew's fair at london was one of the greatest of all, and its name came about in an interesting way. barty knew the story by heart. the founder was rahere, the jester of henry i. while on pilgrimage to rome he had fallen ill in a little town outside the city, and being near death had prayed to saint bartholomew, who was said to have been a physician, for help. the saint, so the legend goes, appeared to him in a vision and told him to found a church and a hospital. he was to have no misgiving, but go forward with the work and the way would be made clear. coming back to england he told the story to the king, who gave him land in a waste marshy place called smoothfield, outside london, where the wall turned inward in a great angle. he got the foundations laid by gathering beggars, children and half-witted wanderers about him and making a jest of the hard work. the fields were like the kind of place where a circus-tent is pitched now. horses and cattle were brought there to market, as it was convenient both to the roads outside and the gates of the city. the church walls rose little by little, as the king and others became interested in the work, and in course of time rahere gathered a company of augustines there and became prior of the monastery. the hospital built and tended by these monks was the first in london. in 1133 rahere persuaded the king to give him a charter for a three days' fair of saint bartholomew in the last week of august, and tradition says that he used sometimes to go out and entertain the crowds with jests and songs. rahere's norman arches are still to be seen in saint bartholomew's church in london, close by the street that is called the cloth fair. the fair grew and prospered, for it had everything in its favor. it came at a time of year when traveling was good, it was near the horse-market, which every farmer would want to visit, it was near london on the other hand, so that merchants english and foreign could come out to sell their goods, and it had close by the church and the hospital, which received tolls, or a percentage as it would be called to-day, on the profits. barty had heard of the fair ever since he could remember, for almost every year some one in the neighborhood went. very early in the morning the little party set forth, and barty kissed his mother and the younger ones good-by, feeling very important. he rode behind david, and two serving men came with them to take care of the horses and luggage. farmer appleby was taking two fine young horses to market, and some apples and other oddments to his sister olive. they trotted along the narrow lane at a brisk pace and presently reached the high road. after that there was much to see. all sorts of folk were wending to the fair. the fairs, all over england, were the goal of foreign traders and small merchants of every kind, who could not afford to set up shop in a town. in many cases the tolls of the fair went to the king, to some abbey, or to one of the guilds. the law frequently obliged the merchants in the neighboring town or city to close their shops while the fair lasted. the townsfolk made holiday, or profited from the more substantial customers who came early and stayed late with friends. barty heard his father and david discussing these and other laws as they rode. for david, as a stranger in the country, all such matters were of interest, although a member of the masons' guild could travel almost anywhere in the days of constant building. no stranger might remain in london more than one night. the first night he stayed in any man's house he might be regarded as a stranger, but if he stayed a second night he was considered the guest of the house-holder, and after that he was to be held a member of the household, for whom his host was responsible. wandering tradesmen would have had a hard time of it without the fairs. on a pinch, a traveling merchant who sold goods at a fair could sleep in his booth or in the open air. the law did not affect the appleby party. barty's aunt olive was married to swan petersen, a whitesmith or worker in tin, and she lived outside the wall, close to the church of saint clement of the danes. when they reached london they would lodge under her roof. they stayed at an inn the first night on the road, and slept on the floor wrapped in their good woolen cloaks, for the place was crowded. during the hour after supper barty, perched on a barrel in the court-yard, saw jongleurs and dancers, with bells on head and neck and heels, capering in the flare of the torches. he heard a minstrel sing a long ballad telling the story of havelok the dane, which his mother had told him. his father and david gave each a penny to these entertainers, and barty felt as content as any boy would, on the way to london with money in his pocket for fairings. toward the end of the next day the crowd was so dense that they had to ride at a snail's pace in dust and turmoil, and barty grew so tired that he nearly tumbled off. david, with a chuckle, lifted the boy around in front of him, and when they reached london after the closing of the gates, and turned to the right toward the little village founded by the danes, they had to shake barty awake at swan petersen's door. aunt olive, a trim, fresh-faced, flaxen-haired woman, laughed heartily as the sleepy boy stumbled in. "how late you are, brother!" she said. "and this is david saumond, by whom you sent a message last year. well, it is good to see you. and how are they all at home?" barty was awake next morning almost as soon as the pigeons were, and peering out of the window he saw david, already out and surveying the street. the boy tumbled into his clothes and down the stairs, and went with david to look about while farmer appleby and his sister told the news and unpacked the good things from the country. the fleet river was crowded with ships of the lesser sort, and the thames itself was more than twice as broad as it is to-day. barty wanted to see london bridge at once, but that was some distance away, and so was london tower. the tangle of little lanes around the convent garden was full of braying donkeys, bawling drivers, cackling poultry and confusion. in fair-time there was a general briskening of all trade for miles around. at charing village david hailed a boatman, and all among the swans and other water-fowl, the barges and sailing craft, they went down to london bridge. barty had asked any number of questions about this bridge when david returned from london the previous year, but as often happens, the picture he had formed in his mind was not at all like the real thing. it was a wooden bridge, but the beginnings of stone piers could be seen. "they've put peter de colechurch at that job," said david. "he has a vision of a brig o' stanes, and swears it shall come true." "do you think it will?" asked barty soberly. the vast river as he looked to right and left seemed a mighty creature for one man to yoke. "not in his time, happen, but some day it will," david answered as they shot under the middle arch. "and yon's the tower!" barty felt as if he had seen enough for the day already as he gazed up at the great square keep among the lesser buildings, jutting out into the river as if to challenge all comers. however, there was never a boy who could not go on sight-seeing forever. by the time they had returned to fleet street he had tucked away the tower and london bridge in his mind and was ready for the fair. the fair was a city of booths, of tents, of sheds and of awnings. bunyan described the like in vanity fair. cloth-sellers from cambrai, paris, ypres, arras and other towns where weavers dwelt, had a street to themselves, and so did the jewelers. the jewelry was made more for show than worth, and there were gay cords for lacing bodices or shoes, and necklaces that were called "tawdrey chains" from the fair of st. etheldreda or saint audrey, where they were first sold. there were glass beads and perfume-bottles from venice; there were linens of damietta, brocaded stuff from damascus, veils and scarfs from moussoul--or so they were said to be. shoes of cordovan leather were there also, spices, and sweetmeats, herbs and cakes. old-fashioned people call machine-sawed wooden borders on porches "gingerbread work." the gingerbread sold by old goody raby looked very much like them. she had gingerbread horses, and men, and peacocks, and monkeys, gingerbread churches and gingerbread castles, gingerbread kings and queens and saints and dragons and elephants, although the elephant looked rather queer. they were made of a spicy yellow-brown dough rolled into thin sheets, cut into shapes, baked hard and then gilded here and there. the king's crown, the peacock's head and neck, the castle on the elephant's back, were gilded. barty bought a horse for himself and a small menagerie of animals for the younger children at home. a boy not much older than himself was selling perfume in a tiny corner. it struck barty that here might be something that his mother would like, and he pulled at aunt olive's sleeve and asked her what she thought. she agreed with him, and they spent some pleasant minutes choosing little balls of perfumed wax, which could be carried in a box or bag, or laid away in chests. there was something wholesome and refreshing about the scent, and barty could not make up his mind what flower it was like. the boy said that several kinds were used in the making of each perfume, and that he had helped in the work. he said that his name was "vanni," which barty thought a very queer one, but this name, it appeared, was the same as john in his country. barty himself would be called there bartolomeo. vanni seemed to be known to many of the people at the fair. a tall, brown young fellow with a demure dark-eyed girl on his arm stopped and asked him how trade was, and so did a young man in foreign dress who spoke to him in his own language. this young man was presently addressed as "matteo," by a gayly clad troubadour, and barty, with a jump, recognized the young man who had been with the king when he came to look at their dyke. one of the reasons why almost everybody came to bartlemy fair was that almost everybody did. it was a place where people who seldom crossed each other's path were likely to meet. "has vanni caught anything yet?" the troubadour asked in that language which barty did not know. "not yet," the other answered, "but he will. set a weasel to catch a rat." and the two laughed and parted. but it was barty who really caught the rat they were talking about. a man with a performing bear had stopped just there and a crowd had gathered about him. barty had seen that bear the night before, and he could not see over the heads of the men, in any case. a stout elderly merchant trying to make his way through the narrow lanes, fumed and fretted and became wedged in. barty saw a thin, shabby-faced fellow duck under a big drover's arm, cut a long slit in the stout man's purse that hung at his belt, and slip through the crowd. just then some one raised a cry that the bear was loose, and everything was confusion. barty's wit and boldness blocked the thief's game. he tripped the man up with david's staff, and with a flying jump, landed on his shoulders. it was a risky thing to do, for the man had a knife and could use it, but barty was the best wrestler in his village, and a minute later david had nabbed the rascal and recovered the plunder. "thank ye, my lad, thank ye," said the merchant, and hurried away. the boy vanni swept all his goods into a basket and after one look at the thief was off like a shot. presently up came two or three men in the livery of the king's officers. meanwhile farmer appleby and his sister came up, having seen the affair from a little distance. "my faith," said aunt olive indignantly, "he might have spared a penny or two for your trouble. that was gamelyn bouverel, one of the richest goldsmiths in chepe." "i don't care," laughed barty, "it was good sport." but that was not to be the end of it. they were on their way to the roast-pig booth where cooked meat could be had hot from the fire, when a young londoner came toward them. "you are the lad who saved my uncle's purse for him," he said in a relieved tone. "i thought i had lost you in the crowd. here is a fairing for you," and he slipped a silver groat into barty's hand. "now, that is more like a christian," observed aunt olive. but barty was meditating about something, and he was rather silent all through dinner. besides the hot roast, they bought bread, and barty had his new "bartlemy knife" with which to cut his slice of the roast. a costard-monger sold them apples, and the seeds were carefully saved for planting at home. then they must all see a show, and they crowded into a tent and saw a play acted by wooden marionettes in a toy theater, like a punch and judy. in the cloth fair the farmer bought fine flemish cloth for the mother, dyed a beautiful blue, and red cloth for a cloak for hilda. while aunt olive was helping to choose this barty slipped across the way and looked for vanni. he had heard vanni tell the men that the thief's name was conrad waibling. rascals were a new thing in barty's experience. there was nobody in the village at home who would deliberately hem in a man by a crowd and then rob him. barty was sure that the man with the performing bear was in it as well. "vanni," he said, "you know that thief that they caught?" vanni nodded. "do you think that the man with the dancing bear was a friend of his?" "i know he was," said vanni grimly. "he escaped." barty hesitated. "what do you think they will do to the one that they caught?" "he will be punished," answered vanni coolly. "he is a poisoner. he has sold poisoned spices--for pay. i think he failed, and did not poison anybody, so that he has had to get his living where he could. he is finished now--ended--no more." barty felt rather cold. vanni was so matter-of-fact about it. the italian boy saw the look on his face. "there is nothing," he added, "so bad as betraying your salt--you understand--to live in a man's house and kill him secretly--to give him food which is death. there are places where no man can trust his neighbor. you do not know what they are like. your father is his own man." barty felt that he had seen a great deal in the world since he left the farm in the danelaw. he was glad to go with his father and aunt olive and david into the stately quiet church. the prior of the monastery--rahere had long been dead--was a famous preacher, aunt olive said, and often preached sermons in rhyme. they went through the long airy quiet rooms of the hospital where the monks were tending sick men, or helping them out into the sun. as they came out, past the box for offerings, and each gave something, barty left there his silver groat. "i'd rather saint bartlemy had it," he said. midsummer day in england a thousand years ago this england drew into her magic circle robin, puck, friar rush, the jester--all the wizard crew that foot it through the mazes for good luck. flyting and frisking through the sussex lanes they watched the roman legions come and go, and the tall ships that once were kingly spain's driven like drifting snow. midsummer day in england! faery bells blue as the skies--and wheat-fields poppy-sown. queen mab's own roses--hawthorn-scented dells, and marshes where the bittern broods alone. bees of this garden, over salisbury plain the circling airships drone! xv edwitha's little bowl how edwitha found roman pottery in the field of a sussex farm under a hawthorn bush, near a white road leading up a hill, in sight of a thatch-roofed farmhouse, two little girls were playing house. their names were edwitha and audrey, and they were cousins. audrey's father lived in the farmhouse and kept sheep on the downs, and edwitha had also lived there nearly all her life. her father had been lost at sea, and her mother had brought her back to the old home, and died not long after. the two girls had grown up like sisters, for the farmer was not a man who did things by halves, and when he adopted his brother's orphan child he made her his own. the two children were almost exactly of a size, and within a year of the same age; and both had the milky skin and rose-pink cheeks which make english children look so like flowers. but audrey's hair was yellow as ripe wheat, and edwitha's was brown like an oak-leaf in autumn; audrey's eyes were gray, and edwitha's were dark and dreamy. they wore homespun linen gowns off the same web of watchet blue, and little clumsy leather shoes like sandals, made by the village shoemaker. this particular place was their favorite playhouse. there were two hollows, like dimples in the hill, and the bush bent over one like a roof, while the other had been roofed over by a neighbor-lad, wilfrid. he had stuck saplings into the ground, bent the tops over and woven branches in and out to hold them. they took root and came out in fine leaf. wilfrid had seen something like it in a garden, where a walk was roofed in this way and called a "pleached alley." it looked like a bird's nest built on the ground, but it was a very nice little bower. at this particular hour they were making ready for a feast, setting out the eatables on all their best bits of crockery. whatever was broken in the house was likely to come to them, and besides this, they found a good many pieces of pottery of different kinds on the farm. this had been, a thousand years before, a part of a roman governor's country estate. when the men were plowing they often turned up scraps of bronze, tiles, or dishes that had been all that time buried in the earth. edwitha was especially fond of the tiles; and she had collected almost enough of them to make a little hearth. the one she intended for the middle had a picture in colors of a little brown rabbit sitting on the grass, nibbling a carrot, with a blue flower and a yellow one growing close by. it was almost whole--only one corner was broken. edwitha's dishes were nearly all of the old roman ware. the fragments were deep red, and some had little black figures and decorations on them. no two fitted together, and there were no pieces large enough for her to make out what the dish had been like. she used to wonder what sort of people had used those dishes, and whether they lived very differently from the sussex people who came after them. it seemed as if they must have. no dishes made nowadays had any such appearance. audrey did not care about such matters. she preferred a bowl and jug she had which came from the pottery, and were whole, and would hold milk and honey. when the two girls ate their dinner in their bower, as they sometimes did, they used little wooden bowls with horn spoons. wilfrid was the only person edwitha knew, besides herself, who was at all interested in the unearthed pottery. he had brought her some of the best pieces she had, and had asked the priest at the village whether he knew who made such things. father cuthbert knew that there had been romans in england, and he told wilfrid some roman history, but there was nothing in it about the way in which the romans really lived. the very road that ran past the bower had been made by the romans. it gave its name to the farm--borstall farm. it was a track cut deep into the chalk of the hill, not more than ten feet wide, leading to the camp which had once been on the top of the down. nothing was there now but the sheep and the gorse and the short, sweet grass of the downs. on a level terrace-like break in the hillside, overlooking the valley, a roman villa had stood, a great house with white porticoes, marble columns, tiled floors and painted walls. mosaic pictures of the gods had been a part of its decorations, and if any one had known it, those buried gods were under the hillside quite uninjured--so firm and strong was the roman cement, and so thorough the work. hundreds of guests and relatives and servants had come and gone in the stately palace of the provincial governor; the farm lands around it had been tilled by hundreds of peasants in its two hundred years of splendor. no wonder there were so many fragments! a great many dishes can be broken in two centuries. pincher, the old sheep-dog, had been invited to the feast in the bower, but when it was ready he was busy elsewhere. edwitha went looking for him, and after she had called several times she heard his answering "wuff! wuff!" and caught sight of him down among the brambles at the boundary-line of the next farmstead. he came leaping toward her, and as she looked at the place where he had been, she saw that a piece of the bank had slid into a rabbit-burrow, and something red was sticking out of the earth. it was a little red bowl. no such bowls are made in these days. they are never seen except on a shelf in some museum. wise men have called them "samian ware," because they have been found on the island of samos, but as some of this ware has been found wherever the romans went in gaul or britain, it would seem that they must have had some secret process in their potteries and made it out of ordinary clay. the bowl was deep red, and beautifully smooth. around it was a band of little dancing figures in jet black, so lifelike that it almost seemed as if such figures might come out of the copse and dance away down the hill. edwitha took some leaves and rubbed off the clay that stuck to the bowl, and the cleaner she made it the prettier it was. very carefully she carried it back to the bower to show audrey. half way there, a dreadful thought came to her. what if audrey should want the bowl? it was quite perfect--the only whole one they had found--and audrey always liked things that were whole, not broken or nicked, better than any sort of imperfect ones. certainly they could not both have it. edwitha came to a stop, and stood quite still, thinking about it. she knew a place, under the roots of an old tree, where she could keep the bowl, and go and look at it when she was alone, and no one would know that she had it. if audrey wanted the bowl, and took it, she might let it get broken, and then she would be willing that edwitha should have it; but that would be worse than not having it at all. edwitha felt as if she could not bear to have anything happen to the pretty thing. it already seemed like something alive--like a strange, mute person whom nobody understood but herself. she was the only person who really wanted it, and she knew that it wanted her. but under these thoughts which pushed unbidden into edwitha's mind was her own feeling that it was a meanness even to think them. she and audrey had all their lives done things together, and audrey always shared. she always played fair. edwitha took the bowl in both hands and walked straight and very fast up to the bower. "audrey," she said, holding out the bowl, "see what i found." audrey looked at it. "that's like your other dishes, isn't it?" she commented. "only it is whole. it is just the thing for the dewberries. they will be prettier than in the basket." edwitha set the bowl in the middle of the table and poured the shining dark fruit into it. it did look pretty, and it had a mat of green oak-leaves under it which made it prettier still. audrey began sticking white blossoms round the edge to set off the red and green. "i'm glad you found it," she added placidly; "you haven't one dish that is quite whole, and i have a blue one, and a white one, and a jug." edwitha touched the bowl caressingly with the tips of her fingers. "i will try to find another for you," she said. "if you find any more," answered audrey, pushing pincher away from the dish of cold meat, "you can have them. i'd rather have our dishes in sets, i think." edwitha was poking about in the bank where she had found the bowl, late that afternoon, when wilfrid came up the bank. there seemed to be no more dishes in sight. "what have you found?" asked wilfrid. he held it up in the sunlight, and drew a quick breath of delight. "how beautiful it is!" he exclaimed in a low voice. edwitha was silent. she was filled with a great happiness because she had the bowl. "i wonder how it came to be here," mused wilfrid, and fell to digging and prodding the earth. "there isn't another in the hole," said edwitha. "i've been here a long time." "this is the only bit i ever saw that was found just here. but see here, edwitha, this is clay. it is exactly like the clay they use at the pottery down by the ford, but finer--i think. i tell you--i believe there was a pottery here once." he and edwitha took the bowl and a few lumps of the clay, next morning, to the master potter beyond the village. wilfrid had served his apprenticeship at this pottery and was now a journeyman. the clay proved to be finer and more workable than that near the pottery, and the deposit was close to the high road, so that donkeys and pack-horses could come up easily to be loaded with their earthen pots. it was even possible, so the master potter said, that it would make a better grade of ware than they had been able to make hitherto. finally, and most important from the point of view of wilfrid and edwitha, it was on wilfrid's own farm, he had his old mother to support, and this discovery might make it possible for him to have his own pottery and be a master potter. edwitha often wished that the bowl could speak, and tell her how it was made, and who drew the little dancing figures. in course of time wilfrid tried some experiments with pottery, ornamenting it with figures in white clay on the colored ground, and searching continually for new and better methods of glazing, baking, and modeling his wares. at last, when the years of his apprenticeship had all been served, and he knew everything that was taught in the old sussex pottery by the ford, he came one spring twilight to the farmhouse and found edwitha in the garden. "it is no use," he said, half-laughing. "i shall never be content to settle down here until i have seen what they are doing in other lands. if there is anywhere a man who can make things like that bowl of yours, i must learn what he can teach me. it may be that the secret has been lost--if it has, i will come back and work here again. a man was never meant to do less than his best, edwitha." "i know," said edwitha. "those figures make me feel so too. they always did. i don't want to live anywhere but here--and now audrey has gone away, uncle and aunt could never do without me--but i wish we could make beautiful things in england." "some of the clever ones are in england," wilfrid answered. "they are doing good work in glass, i know, and in carven stone, and some other things, but that is mostly for the rich abbeys. i shall never be aught but a potter--but i will be as good a one as i can." therefore wilfrid took scrip and staff and went on pilgrimage to france, and there he saw things which made him sure that men had not lost the love of beauty out of the world. but he could hear of no master potters who made anything like the deep red roman ware. after a year of wandering he came back, full of new plans, and with many tales to tell; but he told edwitha that in all his travels he had seen nothing which was better worth looking at than her little roman bowl. [illustration: "'how beautiful it is!' he exclaimed"--_page 192_] song of the tapestry weavers all among the furze-bush, round the crystal dewpond, feed the silly sheep like a cloud upon the down. come safely home to croft, bear fleeces white and soft, then we'll send the wool-wains to fair london town. all in the dawnlight, white as a snowdrift lies the wool a-waiting the spindle and the wheel. sing, wheel, right cheerily, while i pace merrily,- knot by knot the thread runs on the busy reel. all in the sunshine, gay as a garden, lie the skeins for weaving, the blue and gold and red. fly, shuttle, merrily, in and out cheerily, making all the woof bright with a rainbow thread. all in the noontide, wend we to market,- hear the folk a-chaffering like jackdaws up and down. master, give ear to me, here's cloth for you to see, fit for a canopy in fair london town. all in the twilight sweet with the hearth-smoke, homeward we go riding while the vesper bells ring. southdown or highland scot, fleming or huguenot, weaving our tapestries we shall serve our king! xvi looms in minchen lane how cornelys bat, the flemish weaver, befriended a black sheep and saved his wool it was in the early springtime, when lambs are frisking like rabbits upon the tender green grass, and all the land is like a tapestry of blue and white and gold and pink and green. robert edrupt, as he rode westward from london on his homeward way, felt that he had never loved his country quite so well as now. he had gone with a flock of english sheep to northern spain, and come back in the same ship with the spanish jennets which the captain took in exchange. on one of those graceful half-arabian horses he was now riding, and on another, a little behind him, rode a swarthy, black-haired and black-eyed youngster in a sheepskin tunic, who looked about him as if all that he saw were strange. in truth cimarron, as they called him, was very like a wild sheep from his native pyrenees, and edrupt was wondering, with some amusement and a little apprehension, what his grandmother and barbara would say. the boy had been his servant in a rather dangerous expedition through the mountains, and but for his watchfulness and courage the english wool-merchant might not have come back alive. edrupt had been awakened between two and three in the morning and told that robbers were on their trail, and then, abandoning their animals, cimarron had led him over a precipitous cliff and down into the next valley by a road which he and the wild creatures alone had traveled. when the horses were led on shipboard the boy had come with them, and london was no place to leave him after that. they rode up the well-worn track into the yard of longley farm, and leaving the horses with his attendant, edrupt went to find his family. dame lysbeth was seated in her chair by the window, spinning, and would have sent one of the maids to call the mistress of the house, but edrupt shook his head. he said that he would go look for barbara himself. he found her kneeling on the turf tending a motherless lamb, and it was a good thing that the lamb had had nearly all it could drink already, for when barbara looked up and saw who was coming the rest of the milk was spilled. she looked down, laughing and blushing, presently, at the hem of her russet gown. "sheep take a deal o' mothering," she explained, "well-nigh as much as men. come and see the new-born lambs, robert, will 'ee?" robert stroked the head of the old sheep-dog that had come up for his share of petting. "here is a black sheep for thee to mother, sweetheart," he said with a laugh. "he's of a breed that is new in these parts." barbara looked at the rough, unkempt young stranger, with surprise but no unkindness in her eyes. she was not easily upset, and however wild he looked, the new-comer had been brought by robert, and that was all that concerned her. "where did tha find him, and what's his name?" she inquired. edrupt laughed again, in proud satisfaction this time; he might have known that barbara would behave just in that way. he explained, and cimarron was forthwith shown a corner of a loft where he might sleep, and introduced to don the collie as a shepherd in good standing. he and the sheep-dog seemed to understand each other almost at once, and though one was almost as silent as the other, they became excellent comrades. besides the sheep, cimarron seemed interested in but one thing on the farm, and that was the old loom which had belonged to dame garland and still stood in the weaving-chamber, where he slept. dame lysbeth, rummaging there for some flax that she wanted, found the boy sitting on the bench with one bare foot on the treadle, studying the workings of the clumsy machine. it was a "high-warp" loom, in which the web is vertical, and in the loom-chamber where barbara's maids spun and wove, edrupt had set up a flemish "low-warp" loom with all the latest fittings. into that place the herd-boy had never ventured. but dame lysbeth saw with surprise that he seemed to understand this loom quite well. when he was asked, he said that he had seen weaving done on such a loom in his country. "robert will be surprised," said barbara thoughtfully. "who ever saw a lad like that who cared about weaving?" but edrupt was not as mystified as the women were. he thought it quite possible that the dark young stranger might have come of some eastern race which had made weaving an art beyond anything the west could do. "i think," he said one morning, "that i will take him to london and let him try what he can do in cornelys bat's factory." cornelys bat was a flemish weaver who had come to london some months before and set up his looms in an old wool-storeroom outside london wall. he was a very skillful workman, but flanders had weavers enough to supply half europe with clothing, and his own town of arras was already known for its tapestries. the lowlands were overcrowded, and there was not bread enough to go around. edrupt, whom he had known for several years, helped him to settle himself in england, and he had met with almost immediate success. now he had with him not only his old parents, a younger brother and sister and an aunt with her two children, but three neighbors who also found life hard in populous flanders. he felt that he had done well in following edrupt's advice, "when the wool won't come to you, go where the wool is." he was a square-built, placid, light-haired man with a stolid expression that sometimes misled people. when edrupt came to him with a strange new apprentice, he readily consented to give the boy a chance. it was the only chance that there was, for the weavers' guild would not have had him. after a while cimarron, or zamaroun as the other 'prentices called him, was promoted from porter to draw-boy, as the weaver's assistant was termed. this work did not need skill, exactly, but it did demand strength and close attention. the boy from the pyrenees was as strong as a young ox, and he was never tired of watching the work and seeing exactly how it was done. his silent, quick strength suited cornelys bat. weaving is work which needs the constant thought of the weaver, especially when the work is tapestry, and just at present the flemings had secured an order for a set of tapestries for one of the king's country houses. henry ii. was so continually traveling that the king of france once petulantly observed that he must fly like a bird through the air to be in so many places during the year. he had a way of mixing sport with state affairs, and a week spent in some palace like woodstock or clarendon might be divided evenly between his lawyers and his hunting-dogs. it is also said of him that he never forgot a face or a fact once brought to his notice. perhaps he learned more on his hunting trips than any one imagined. [illustration: high-warp loom] [illustration: low-warp loom] the tapestry weaving was far more complex and difficult than anything done by barbara edrupt's maids. the loom used by the flemings was a "low-warp" loom, in which the web is horizontal. when the heavy timbers were set up they were mortised together, that is, a projection in one fitted into a hollow in another, dovetailing them together without nails. wooden pegs fitted into holes, and thus the frame, in all its parts, could be taken to pieces and carried from place to place on pack-horses if necessary. an ordinary loom was about eight feet long and perhaps four feet wide, the web usually being not more than a yard wide, and more commonly twenty-three or four inches. broadcloth was woven in those days, but not very commonly, for it needed a specially constructed loom and two weavers, one for each side, because of the width of the cloth. in tapestry weaving the picture was made in strips, as a rule, and sewed together. the idea of tapestry weaving in the early part of the middle ages was to tell a story. few colors were used, and instead of making one large picture, which would have been very difficult with the looms then in use, the tapestries were made in sets, in which a series of pictures from some legends or chronicle could be shown. when in place, they were wall-coverings hung loosely from great iron hooks over which rings were slipped, or hangings for state beds, or sometimes a strip of tapestry was hung above the carved choir-stalls of a church, horizontally, to add a touch of color to the gray walls. when a court moved, or there was a festival day in the church, these woven or embroidered hangings could be taken from one place to another. many tapestries were embroidered by hand, which was easier for the ordinary woman than weaving a picture, but took far more time. kings and noblemen who had money to spend on such things would order sets of tapestry woven by such skilled workmen as cornelys bat and his flemings, or the monks of saumur in france, or the weavers of poitiers. in sicily, these hangings were often made of silk, for silk was already made there. gold and silver thread was used sometimes, both in weaving and embroidery. wool, however, was very satisfactory, not only because it was less costly than silk, but because it took dye well and made a web of rich soft colors. it was this which had drawn robert edrupt into flanders to see what the weavers there were about, what sort of wool they used, and what the outlook was for their work. in cornelys bat he had found a man who could tell him very nearly all that there was to know about weaving. yet weaving is a craft of so many possibilities and complexities that a man may spend his whole life at it and still feel himself only a learner. the master weaver liked cimarron because the boy never chattered, but kept his whole mind on his work. when cornelys was revolving some new combination or design in his head, his drawboy was as silent as the weaver's beam, and the whirr and clack of the loom were the only sounds in the place. the weaver at such a loom sat at one end on a little board, with the heavy roller or weaver's beam on which the warp, the lengthwise thread, was fastened in front of him. at the far end of the frame was another roller, the warp being stretched taut between the two. as the work progressed the web was rolled up gradually toward the weaver, and the pattern, if there was one, lay under the warp and was rolled up on a separate roller. every skilled weaver had a number of simple patterns in his head, as a knitter has, but for a tapestry picture a pattern was drawn and colored on parchment ruled in squares, and a duplicate pattern made without the color, showing all the arrangement of the threads and used in "gating" as the arrangement of the warp in the beginning was called. every weaver had his own way of gating, and his own little tricks of weaving. it was a craft that gave a chance for any amount of ingenuity. in plain, "tabby" or "taffety" weaving, the weft or woof, the crosswise thread, went in and out exactly as in darning, and the two treadles underneath the web, worked by the feet, lifted alternately the odd threads and the even threads, the weaver tossing the shuttle from hand to hand between them. at each stroke of the shuttle the swinging beam, or batten, beat up the weft to make a close, firm, even weave. the shuttle, made of boxwood and shaped like a little boat, held in its hollow the "quill" or bobbin carrying the weft. when all the "yarn," as thread for weaving was always called, was wound off, the weaver fastened on the end of the next thread with what is even now called a "weaver's knot." as the side of the web toward him was the wrong side of the cloth, no knot was allowed to show on the right side. in brocaded, figured or tapestry weaving, leashes or loops called heddles were hung from above and lifted whatever part of the warp they were attached to. for example, three threads out of ten in the warp could be lifted by one group of heddles with one motion of the treadle, the heddles being grouped or "harnessed" to make this possible. it can be seen that in weaving by hand a tapestry with perhaps forty or fifty figures and animals, besides flowers and trees, the most convenient arrangement of the heddles called for brains as well as skill of hand in the weaver who did the work. the drawboy's work was to pull each set of cords in regular order forward and downward. these cords had to raise a weight of about thirty-six pounds, which the boy must hold for perhaps a third of a minute while the ground was woven. he was in a way a part of the machine, but a part which had a brain. a ratchet on the roller which held the finished web kept it from slipping back and held the warp stretched firm at that end, and in some looms there was a ratchet on the other roller as well. but cornelys bat preferred weights at the far end of the warp. these allowed the warp to give a tiny bit at every blow of the batten and then drew it instantly taut, no matter how heavy the box was made. "this kindly giving," explained the weaver, "preventeth the breaking of the slender threads. no law may be kept too straitly and no thread drawn too strictly. that is a part of the craft." cornelys may have been thinking of something more than weaving when he made that observation. the quiet tapissiers of arras had caused an uproar in the guild of london weavers. a few cool heads advised the others to live and let live. the flemings would be good english folk in time, and whatever they knew would help the craft in the future. but others, forgetting that they had refused to let their sons serve apprenticeship to cornelys bat when he came, railed at him for taking flemings, gascons, florentines and even a vagabond from nobody knew where, into his employ. "we will have no black sheep in our fold," vociferated the leader of this faction, a keen-faced, tow-headed man of middle age. "these foreigners will ruin the craft." "tut, tut," protested martin byram, "i have heard master cole of reading say that thy grandfather, his 'prentice boy, was a swabian, simon. and he brought no craft to england." there was a laugh, for everybody knew that the superior skill of the flemings was one main cause of their success in the market. some of the weavers even had the insight to see that so far from taking work away from any english weaver, they were thus far doing work which would have gone abroad to find them if they had not been here, and the gold paid them was kept and spent in london markets. for all that, the feeling against the flemings grew and spread, and might have broken out into open violence if they had not been working on the king's tapestries. nobody felt like interfering with them until that job was done, for the king might ask questions, and not like the answers. how much of all this cornelys bat knew, no one could tell. cimarron watched him, but the broad, thoughtful face was placid as usual. one day, however, the dark young apprentice was set upon in the street, where he had gone on an errand, by a crowd of other lads who nearly tore the clothes off his back. they had not reckoned on effectual fighting strength in this foreign youth, and they found that even a black sheep can be dangerous on occasion. the threats which they muttered set the boy's mountain-bred senses on the alert, and he went back to the master weaver with the information that as soon as the king's tapestries were finished the looms and their shelter would be burned over their heads. "i hid in the loft and heard," said cimarron earnestly. "they are evil men here, master." the fleming frowned slightly and balanced the beam of his loom--he was about to begin the last panel--thoughtfully in his hand. "so it seems," he said. "well, we will finish the tapestries as early as may be." one of the weavers saw lights in the flemish loom-rooms that night, and reported that the strangers were working by candle-light, contrary to the law of the guild--to which they did not belong. but cornelys bat was gathering together the work already done, and he and cimarron and two of the other men carried it before morning to the warehouse of gilbert gay, the merchant, where it would be safe. they also took there certain bales of fine wool, dyes, and some household goods, and all this was loaded the next day on a boat and sent up the thames to a point above london, where robert edrupt's pack-horses took it to king's barton. "it is no use to try to fight the entire guild," said edrupt ruefully. "you had best come to our village and make your home there. when this has blown over you may come back to london." "if i were alone i would not budge," said the fleming with a sternness in his blue eyes. "but there are the old folk and the little ones. we have left our own land and come where the wool was; it is now time for the work to come to us." "i will warrant you it will," said master gay. "but are you going to leave your looms for them to burn?" "not quite," said cornelys bat, grimly. the mob came just after nightfall of the day after the women and children, with the rest of the household goods, had gone on their way to a new home. it was not a very well organized crowd, and was armed with clubs, pikes, and torches mainly. it found to its astonishment that the timbers of a loom, heavy and well seasoned, may make excellent weapons, and that the arm of a weaver is not feeble nor his spirit weak. it was no part of the plan of cornelys bat to leave the buildings of master gay undefended, and the determined, organized resistance of the flemings repelled the attack. the next day it was found that the weavers had gone, and their quarters were occupied by some of master gay's men who were storing there a quantity of this year's fleeces. meanwhile the flemings had settled in the little road that ran past the nunnery at king's barton and was called minchen lane. the wishing carpet my rug lies under the candle-light, flame-red, sea-blue, leaf-brown, gold-bright, born of the shifting ancient sand of a far-away desert land. there in haroun al raschid's day a carpet enchanted, their wise men say, was woven for princes, in realms apart- and so is this rug of my heart! here is a leaf like the heart of a rose, and here the shift in the pattern shows how another weft in the tireless loom set the gold of the skies a-bloom. old songs, old legends and ancient words they weave in the web as they pasture their herds on the barren slopes of a mountain height in the dusk of the lonely night. prayers and memories and wordless dreams, changeful shadows and lancet gleams,- the eden tree in its folding wall knows them and guards them all. to moussoul market the rug they brought with all its treasure of woven thought, and thus over half a world of sea came the wishing rug to me. xvii the herbalist's brew how tomaso, the physician of padua, found a cure for a weary soul there was thunder in the air, one summer day in king's barton. dame lavender, putting her drying herbs under cover, wondered anxiously what mary was doing. the moods of the royal lady in the castle depended very much on the weather, and both of late had been uncertain. strong-willed, hot-tempered, ambitious and adventurous, this queen had no traits that were suited to a quiet existence in the country. yet she would have been about as safe a person to have at large as a wild-cat among harriers. whoever had the worst of it, the fight would be sensational. when made prisoner she was on the way to the court of france, in which her rebellious sons could always find aid. aquitaine was all but in open revolt against the norman interloper--it was only through her that henry had held that province at all. scotland was ready for trouble at any time; ireland was in tumult; the welsh were in a permanent state of revolt. but norman though he was, the king had won his way among his english subjects. they never forgot that he was only half norman after all. his saxon blood, cold and stubborn, steadied his norman daring, and he could be alternately bold and crafty. eleanor of aquitaine was more an exile in her husband's own country than she would have been in france or italy. his people might rebel against their king themselves, but they did not sympathize with her for doing it. they were as unfeeling as their gray, calm skies. instead of weeping and bemoaning herself she made life difficult for her household. oddly enough the two english girls got on with her better than the rest. mary's even, sunny temper was never ruffled, and barbara's north-country disposition had an iron common-sense at the core. the gentle-born damsels of the court were too yielding. when little hot flashes lightened among the far-off hills, and a distant rumble sounded occasionally, the queen was pacing to and fro on the top of the great keep. it was not the safest place to be in case of a storm, for the castle was the highest building in the neighborhood. philippa, working sedately at a tapestry emblem of a tower in flames, looked up the stairway and shivered as if she were cold. "mary," she queried, as the still-room maid came through the bower, "where is master tomaso?" "in his study, i think," mary answered. "shall i call him?" "nay--i thought----" philippa left the sentence unfinished and folded her work; then she climbed the narrow stair. when the queen turned and saw her she was standing with her slim hands resting on the battlement. "what are you doing away from your tapestry-frame, wench?" demanded her mistress. "are you spying on me again?" "your grace," philippa answered gently, "i could never spy on you--not even if my own father wished it. i--i was talking with master tomaso last night, and he said strange things about the stars. i would you could have heard him." the queen laughed scornfully. "as if it were not enough to be prisoned in four walls, the girl wants to believe herself the puppet of the heavens! look you, silly pigeon, if there be a plantagenet star you may well fear it, for brother hates brother and all hate their father--and belike will hate their children. were you asking him the day of my death?" "i was but asking what flowers belonged to the figures of the zodiac in my tapestry," answered philippa. "he says that a man may rule the stars." "i wish that a woman could," mocked the queen. "how you silly creatures can go on, sticking the needle in and out, in and out, day after day, i cannot see. one would think that you were weavers of fate. i had rather cast myself over the battlements than look forward to thirty years of stitchery!" she swept her trailing robes about her and vanished down the stairs. philippa, following, saw with a certain relief that she turned toward the rooms occupied by old tomaso. the physician was equal to most situations. yet in the queen's present mood anything might arouse her anger. the study was of a quaint, bare simplicity in furnishing. it had a chair, a stool, a bench under the window, a table piled with leather-bound books, a large chest and a small one, an old worm-eaten oaken dresser with some flasks and dishes. a door led into the laboratory, and another into the cell where the philosopher slept. as the queen entered he rose and with grave courtesy offered her his chair, which she did not take. she stood looking out across the quiet hills, and pressed one hand and then the other against her cheeks--then she turned, a dark figure against the stormy sky. "they say that you know all medicine," she flung out at him. "have you any physic for a wasted soul?" with a fierce gesture she pointed at the half-open door. "why do you stay in this dull sodden england--you who are free?" "there are times, your grace," the physician replied tranquilly, "when i forget whether this is england or venetia." the queen moved restlessly about the room, and stopped to look at an herbal. "will you teach me the properties of plants?" she asked, as she turned the pages carelessly. "with mary's help we might make here an herb-garden. it is well to know the noxious plants from the wholesome, lest--unintentionally--one should put the wrong flavor in a draught." tomaso had seen persons in this frame of mind before. he had taught many pupils the properties of plants, but he had his own ways of doing it. in his native city of padua and elsewhere, there were chemists who owed their fame to the number of poisons they understood. "i have some experiments in hand which may interest your grace," he answered. "if you will come into my poor studio you shall see them." he led the way into the inner chamber where no one was ever allowed to come. the walls were lined with shelves on which stood jars, flasks, mortars and other utensils whose use the queen could not guess. tomaso did not warn her not to touch any flask. she handled, sniffed and all but tasted. she finally went so far as to pour a small quantity of an unsensational-looking fluid into a glass, and a drop fell on the edge of her mantle, in which it burned a clean hole. [illustration: "tomaso seemed not to have seen her action"] tomaso was pouring something into a bowl from a retort, and seemed not to have seen the action. then he added a pinch of a colorless powder, and dipped a skein of silk into the bowl. it came out ruby-red. another pinch of powder, another bath, and it was like a handful of iris petals. other experiments gave emerald like rain-wet leaves in sunlight, gold like the pale outer petals of asphodels, ripe glowing orange, blue like the mediterranean. then suddenly the light in the stone-arched window was darkened and thunder crashed overhead. the little brazier in the far corner glowed like a red eye, and tomaso had to light a horn lantern before the queen could see her way out of the room. "we shall have to wait, now, until after the storm," he said, as he led the way into the outer room. "i am making these experiments for the benefit of a company of weavers whom a young friend of mine has brought here. the young man--he is a wool-merchant--has an idea that we can weave tapestry here as well as they can in damascus if we have the wherewithal, and i said that i would attend to the dyeing of the yarn." the queen gave a contemptuous little laugh and sank into the great chair. "these saxons! i think they are born with paws instead of hands! they are good for nothing but to herd cattle and plow and reap. do your stars tell you foolish tales like that, master tomaso?" "i did not ask them," said the old man tranquilly. "i use my eyes when i can. the weavers are flemish, and i see no cause why they should not weave as good cloth here as they did at home. they had english wool there, and they will have it here. there is a spaniard among them, and i do not know what he will do when the chilly rains come, poor imp. he does not like anything in england, as it is." "poor imp!" the queen repeated. "how do these weavers come here, so far from any town?" "well, they came like most folk, because they had to come," smiled the paduan. "the english weavers are inclined to be jealous folk, and they took the view that these flemings were foreigners and had no right within london wall--or outside it either, for they were in a lane somewhere about mile end. jealousy fed also on their success in their work--it was far superior to anything london looms can do. and certain dealers in fine cloth saw their profits threatened, and so did the florentine importers. what with one thing and another cornelys bat and his people had to leave the city, or lose all that they possessed. the reasons were as mixed as the threads of a tapestry, but that is the way with life." "and why are you wasting time on them?" the queen demanded. "my motives are also mixed," answered the old man. "being myself an alien in a strange land, i had sympathy for them--especially cimarron, the imp. also it is interesting to work in a new field, and i have never done much with dyestuffs. i sometimes feel like a child gathering bright pebbles on the shore; each one seems brighter than the last. but really, i think i work because i dislike to spend my time in things which will not live after me. it seemed to me that if these flemish weavers come here in colonies, teaching their art to such english as can learn, it will bring this land independence and wealth in years to come. there is plenty of pasturage for sheep, and wool needs much labor to make it fit for human use. edrupt, the merchant--his wife is one of your women, by the way--says that this one craft of weaving will make cities stronger than anything else. and that will disturb some people." the queen's eyes flashed with wicked amusement. she had heard the king rail to his barons upon the impudence of london. she knew that those who invaded london privilege came poorly out of it. "barbara's husband," she said thoughtfully. "i did not know that he was a merchant--i thought he was one of these clod-hopping farmers." tomaso did not enlighten her. curiosity is the mother of knowledge. he peered out at his fast-filling cisterns. "this rain-water," he observed, "will be excellent for my dyestuffs." the queen gave a little light laugh. "the heavens roar anathema maranatha," she cried, "and the philosopher says, 'i will fill my tubs.' you seem to be assured that the powers above are devoted to your service." "it is as well," smiled the physician, "to have them to your aid if possible. some men have a--positive genius--for being on the wrong side. the growth of a people is like the growth of a vine. it will not twine contrary to nature." "but these are not your people," the queen persisted. "no one will know who did the work you are doing." "cornelys bat the tapissier told me," tomaso answered, "that no one knows now who it was who set the foot at work by tipping the loom over, and separated the warp threads by two treadles. yet that changed the whole rule of weaving." "i have a mind to see this tapestry," announced eleanor abruptly. "tell your cat, or rat, or bat, whatever his name is, to bring his looms here. if he works well we will have something for our walls besides this everlasting embroidery. i have watched philippa working the histories of the saints this six months,--i believe she has all the eleven thousand virgins of saint ursula to march along the wall. i am ready to burn a candle to saint attila." tomaso's eyes twinkled. that friendly twinkle went far to unlock the queen's confidence. "here am i," she went on impetuously, "mewed up here like a clipped goose that hears the cry of the flock. if there is another crusade i would joyfully set forth as a man-at-arms, but belike i shall never even hear of it. i warrant you richard will lead a host to jerusalem some day--and i shall not be there to see." the paduan lifted one long finger. "you fret because you are strong and see far. your descendants may rule europe. the plantagenets are a building race. you can lay foundations for kings of the years to come. you have here the chance of knowing this people, whom none of your race did ever know truly. your tiring women, the men who till these fields and live by their toil, the churchmen, the traders--knowing them you know the kingdom. bend your wit and will to rule the stars, madam. thus you bring wisdom out of ill-hap, and in that way only can a king be secure." the queen sat silent, chin in hand, her eyes searching the shadows of the room, for the storm had passed and twilight was falling. "gramercy for your sermon, master tomaso," she said at last, as she rose to leave the room. "some day henry will see that it was not i who taught the plantagenets to quarrel. send for your tapissiers to-morrow, and i will study weaving for a day." to the comfort of all, the queen was in a gay humor that evening. the carved ivory chessmen were brought out, and as she watched ranulph and philippa in the mimic war-game eleanor pondered over the recent betrothal of princess joan to the king of sicily. "women," she muttered, "are only pawns on a man's chessboard." "aye," laughed ranulph, as his white knight retreated, "but your grace may remember that the pawn when it comes to queen may win the game." the bulky loom of cornelys bat was set up next morning in the old hall, and the queen came down to watch the strange, complex, curious task. then she would take the shuttle herself and try it, and to the surprise of every one, kept at the task until she might well have challenged a journeyman. while the threads interlaced and shifted in a rainbow maze her mind was traveling strange pathways. the shuttle, flung to and fro in deft strong skill, was not like the needle with its maddening stitch after stitch, and there was no petty chatter in the room. the flemish weaver might be silent, but he was not stupid, and the drawboy, the dusky youth with the coarse black hair, was like a wild panther-cub. such a blend as these weaving-folk, brought together by one aim, could teach the arbitrary barons their place. normandy, aquitaine, anjou, brittany,--england, scotland, ireland, wales--what a web of empire they would make! and if into the dull russet and gray of this england there came a vivid young life like her richard's--yellow hair, sea-blue eyes, gay daring, impulsive gallantry--and under all the stern fiber of the norman--what kind of a tapestry would that be? thus, as women have done through the centuries, eleanor of aquitaine let her mind play about her fingers. after a while she left the work to the weavers and watched mary lavender making dyestuffs under tomaso's direction. it was fascinating to try for a color and make it come to a shade. it was yet more so to make new combinations and see what happened. red and green dulled each other. a touch of orange made scarlet more brilliant. lavender might be deepened to royal violet or paled to the purple-gray of ashes. the yarns, as the skillful flemings handled them, were better than any gold thread, and the gorgeous blossom-hues of the wools were like an eastern carpet. presently the queen began devising a set of hangings for a state bedchamber, the pictures to be scenes from the life of charlemagne--the suggested comparison of this monarch with the king had its point. an irish monk-bred lad with a knack at catching likenesses came by, and made the designs, under queen eleanor's direction; and during this undertaking she learned much concerning the state of ireland. that ended and the weaving begun, she took to questioning cimarron the drawboy. "i suppose," she jibed, "men grow like that they live by, or you would never have been driven out of london like sheep. i may become lamblike myself some day." cimarron's white teeth gleamed. "i would not say that we went like sheep," he retorted, and he told the story of their going. "there were the old folk and the little ones, your grace," he ended. "the master cares for his own people, and his work. he does not heed other folk's opinions." the queen laughed gleefully. "i wish i had been at that hunting--the wolves driven by their quarry. my faith, a weaver's beam is not such a bad weapon after all." more than ten years after, when richard i. was crowned king of england, one of his first acts was to make his mother regent in his absence. it was she who raised the money to outbid philip of france when coeur de lion was to be ransomed. as one historian has said, she displayed qualities then and later, which prove that she spent her days in something besides needlework. she did not stay long at king's barton, but one of cornelys bat's tapestries was always known as the queen's maze. in one way and another during the sixteen years of her captivity she learned nearly all that there was to know of the temper of the people and the nature of the land. [illustration: the marionettes] the marionettes after the council comes the feast--and then jongleurs and minstrels, and the sudden song that wakes the trumpets and the din of war,- but now the cæsar's mood is for a jest. fellow--you juggler with the puppet-show, the emperor permits you to come in. ah, yes,--the five wise virgins--very fair. there certainly can be no harm in that. the bride, methinks, is somewhat like matilda, wife of duke henry whom they call the lion. aye, to be sure--the little hoods and cloaks all tricked out with the arms of saxony. this way--be brisk now--to the banquet-hall. 'tis clever--here come bride and bride-maidens with lights in silvern lanterns. very good. milan had puppet-shows, but none, i venture, so well set forth as this.... no lombard here, he speaks pure french. aha, the jester comes! a biting satire, yes, a merry jape,- the bear that aped the lion! a good song, 'twill please the saxon, surely. now, what next? here come the foolish virgins all array'd in mourning veils, with little lamps revers'd. the merchant will not sell them any oil, the jester mocks them and the monk rebukes them,- a shrewd morality. aye,--loyalty, truth, kindliness and mercy, and wise judgment are the five precious oils to light a throne. a pretty compliment, a well-turned phrase! woe to the foolish virgins of the lombards if we find lamps unlighted on our way! then surely will the door of hope shut fast and in that outer darkness will be heard weeping and howling.... so, is that the end? hark, fellow, you have pleased the emperor, this ring's the token. take a message now that may be spoken by your wooden king,- the master-mind regards all christendom as but a puppet-show,--he pulls the strings, the others act and speak to suit his book,- aye, truly, a most excellent puppet-show! xviii the hurer's lodgers how the poppet of joan, the daughter of the capmaker, went to court and kept a secret joan, the little daughter of the hurer, sat on a three-legged stool in the corner of her father's shop, nursing her baby. it was not much of a baby, being only a piece of wood with a knob on the end. but the shop was not much of a shop. gilles the hurer was a cripple, and it was all that he could do to give joan and her mother a roof over their heads. they had sometimes two meals a day; oftener one; occasionally none at all. if he could have made hats and caps like those which he used to make when he was a tradesman in milan, every sort of fine goods would have come into the shop. in processions and pageants, at banquets, weddings, betrothals, christenings, funerals, on every occasion in life, the people wore headgear which helped to make the picture. the fashion of a man's hat suited his position in life. details and decorations varied more or less, but the styles very seldom did. velvet and fur were allowed only to persons of a certain dignity; hats were made to show embroidery, which might be of gold thread and jeweled. merchants wore a sort of hood with a long loose crown which could be used as a pocket. this protected the neck and ears on a journey, and had a lining of wool, fur, or lambskin. court ladies wore hoods of velvet, silk or fine cloth for traveling. at any formal social affair a lady wore some ornamental head-dress with a veil which she could draw over her face. the wimple, usually worn by elderly women, was a scarf of fine linen thrown over the head, brought closely around the throat and chin, and held by a fillet. in later and more luxurious and splendid times, the cone-shaped and crescent-shaped head-dresses came in. hats were not common in the twelfth century. the hair fell in carefully arranged curls, long braids or loose tresses on the shoulders; the face was framed in delicate veils of silk or sendal, kept in place by a chaplet of flowers or a coronet of gold. every maiden learned to weave garlands in set patterns, and could make a wreath in any one of several given styles, for her own hair or for decorating a building. red, green and blue were the colors most often used in dress, and on any festival day the company presented a very gay appearance. gilles, however, was obliged to confine himself to the making of hures or rough woolen caps for common men. he had no apprentices, although his wife and daughter sometimes helped him. his shop was a corner of a very old building most of which had been burned in a great london fire. it was the oldest house in the street and was roofed with stone, which probably saved it. the ends of the beams in the wall fitted into sockets in other beams, and were set straight, crooked or diagonally without any apparent plan. two or three hundred years before, when the house was built, the space between the timbers had been filled in with interlaced branches, over which mud was plastered on in thick coats. this made the kind of wall known as "wattle and daub." it was not very scientific in appearance, but it was weather-proof. as there was no fireplace or hearth, the family kept warm--when it could--by means of an iron brazier filled with coals. cooking--when they had anything to cook--was done over the brazier in a chafing-dish, or in a tiny stone fireplace outside the rear wall, made of scattered stones by joan's mother. gilles was a norman, but he had been born in sicily, which had been conquered by the norman adventurer guiscard long before. he had gone to milan when a youth, and there he had met joan's mother--and stayed. the luxury of lombard cities made any man who could manufacture handsome clothing sure of a living. "milaner and mantua-maker" on a sign above a shop centuries later meant a shop where one could find the latest fashions. gilles was prosperous and happy, and his little girl was just learning to walk, when the siege of milan put an end to everything. he came to london crippled from a wound and palsied from fever and set about finding work. they might have starved if it had not been for a florentine artist, matteo, who was also a stranger in london, but had all that he could do. he lodged for a year in the solar chamber, as the room above the shop was called. poor as their shelter was, it had this room to spare. matteo paid his way in more than money; he improved the house. he understood plaster work, and covered the inner walls with a smooth creamy mixture which made a beautiful surface for pictures. on this fair and spotless plaster he made studies of what he saw day by day, drawing, painting, painting out and making new studies as he certainly could not have done had he been lodged in a palace. all along two sides of the shop was a procession of dignitaries in the most gorgeous of holiday robes. in the chamber above were portraits of the king and queen, the bishop of london, prior hagno preaching to a crowd at bartlemy fair, some of the chief men of the government, and animals wild and tame. he told joan stories about the paintings, and these walls were the only picture-books that she had. then they sheltered a smooth-spoken italian called giuseppe, who nearly got them into terrible trouble. he not only never paid a penny, but barely escaped the officers of the law, who asked a great many questions about him and how they came to harbor him. after that they made it a rule not to take any one in unless he was recommended by some one they knew. it was worse to go to prison than to be hungry. one day, when gilles had just been paid for some work done for master nicholas gay, the rich merchant, a slender, dark-eyed youth with a workman's pack on his shoulder came and asked for a room. hardly had joan called her mother when the stranger reeled and fell unconscious on the floor of the shop. he did not know where he was or who he was for days. they remembered giuseppe and were dubious, but they kept him and tended him until he was able to talk. his tools and his hands showed him to be a wood-carver, and his dress was foreign. his illness was something like what used to be called ship-fever, due to the hard conditions of long voyages, in wooden ships not too clean. when their guest was able to talk he told them that he was quentin, a wood-carver of peronne. he had met matteo in messina and thus heard of this lodging. he had come to london to work at the oaken stalls of the bishop of ely's private chapel in holborn. these stalls, or choir-seats, in a gothic church were designed to suit the stately high-arched building. their straight tall backs were carved in wood, and the arm-rests ended in an ornament called a finial. often no two stalls were alike, and yet the different designs were shaped to fit the general style, so that the effect was uniform. the carving of one pair of arms might be couchant lions; on the next, leopards; on the next, hounds, and so on. the seats were usually hinged and could be raised when not in use. the under side of the seat, which then formed part of all this elaborate show of decoration, was most often carved with grotesque little squat figures of any sort that occurred to the artist. here noah stuck his head out of a nutshell ark; there a woman belabored her husband for breaking a jug; on the next stall might be three solemn monkeys making butter in a churn. quentin's fancy was apt to run to little wood-goblins, mermaids, crowned lizards, fauns, and flying ships. he came from a country where the forests are full of fairy-tales. joan would be very sorry to have quentin go away. she was thinking of this as she sat in the twilight nursing her wooden poppet. when he came in at last he had his tools with him, and a piece of fine hard wood about two feet long. seating himself on a bench he lit the betty lamp on the wall, and laying out his knives and gouges he began to carve a face on the wood. joan could not imagine what he was making, and she watched intently. the face grew into that of a charming little lady, with eyes crinkled as if they laughed, and a dimple in her firm chin. the hair waved over the round head; the neck was as softly curved as a pigeon's. the gown met in a v shape at the throat, with a bead necklace carved above. there was a close-fitting bodice, with sleeves that came down over the wrists and wrinkled into folds, and a loose over-sleeve that came to the elbow. the skirt fell in straight folds and there was a little ornamental border in a daisy pattern around the hem. when the statuette was finished and set up, it was like a court lady made small by enchantment. "there is a poppet for thee, small one," quentin said smiling. joan's hands clasped tight and her eyes grew big and dark. "for me?" she cried. "it is a poor return for the kindness that i have had in this house," answered quentin brushing the chips into the brazier. the poppet seemed to bring luck to the hurer's household. through gilles, master gay had heard of quentin's work, and he ordered a coffret for his wife, and a settle. the arms of the settle were to be carved with little lady-figures like joan's, and master gay asked if they could not all be portraits of princesses. joan's own poppet was named marguerite for the daughter of the french king, who had married the eldest son of henry ii. quentin had copied the face from matteo's sketch upon the wall, and in one room or the other were all the other members of the royal family. but as it would not be suitable to show queens and princesses upholding the arms of a chair in the house of a london merchant, quentin suggested that they change the design, and use the leopards of anjou for the arms, while the statuettes of the princesses were ranged along the top of the high back. there could be five open-work arches with a figure in each, and plain linen-fold paneling below. where the carving needed a flower or so he would put alternately the lilies of france and the sprig of broom which was the badge of the plantagenets. thus the piece of carving would commemorate the fact that the family of the king of england was related to nearly every royal house in europe through marriage. it would be a picture-chronicle. in the middle arch was marguerite, who would be queen of england some day if her husband lived. at her right hand was constance of brittany, wife of geoffrey, who through her would inherit that province. the other figures were eleanor, who was married to alfonso, king of castile; matilda, who was the wife of henry the lion, duke of saxony, the most powerful vassal of the german emperor; and joan, the youngest, betrothed to william, called the good, king of sicily. "there will be two more princesses some day," said joan, cuddling marguerite in her arms as she watched quentin's deft strokes. "prince richard is not married yet, and neither is prince john." "the work cannot wait for that, little one," quentin answered laughing. "richard is only sixteen, and john still younger. yet they do say that the king is planning an alliance with princess alois of france for richard, and is in treaty with hubert the duke of maurienne for his daughter to wed with john. i think, myself, that richard will choose his own bride." joan said nothing, but in her own mind she thought it would be most unpleasant to be married off like that, by arrangements made years before. "the marriage with hubert's daughter," quentin added half to himself, "would keep open the way into italy if it were needed. it is a bad thing to have an enemy blocking your gate." although her poppet was carved so that the small out-held hands and arms were clear of the body, and dresses could be fitted over them, joan found that there were but few points or edges that were likely to be chipped off. the wood was well seasoned, and the carving followed the grain most cunningly. neither dampness nor wood-boring insects could easily get into the channels where sap once ran. this was part of the wisdom of wood-carving. when joan grew too old to play with her poppet she sometimes carried her to some fine house to show a new fashion, or style of embroidery. marguerite had a finer wardrobe than any modern doll, for the little hats, hoods and head-dresses had each a costume to go with it, and all were kept in a chest quentin had made for her, with the arms of milan on the lid. no exiled milanese ever quite gave up the hope that some day the city would be rebuilt in all its splendor, and the foreign governors driven from lombardy. joan used to hear her father talking of it with their next lodger, giovanni bergamotto, who was a peddler at fairs. gilles had had steady work for a long time, and was making not only the rough caps he used to make, now turned out by an apprentice, but fine hats and caps for the wealthy. a carved and gilded hat swung before the door, and joan learned embroidery of every kind. she saw quentin now and then, and one day he sent word to her, by the wool-merchant robert edrupt, that queen eleanor wished to see the newest court fashions, and that joan might journey with edrupt and his wife to the abbey where she was living. it was one of the best known houses in england, and the abbess was of royal blood. it was not at all unusual for its guest-rooms to be occupied by queens and princesses. quentin had been sent there to do some work for the abbey, and in that way the queen, through philippa, her maid of honor, had heard of joan. "i suppose it is a natural desire in a woman," master edrupt said when they talked of the matter, "but somehow i would stake my head it is not the fashions she is after." barbara his wife smiled but said nothing. she agreed. when joan had modestly shown her wares, and the little wooden court lady had smiled demurely through it all, the queen dandled marguerite on her knee and thoughtfully looked her over. "the face is surely like the princess of france," she said. and joan felt more than ever certain that there was a reason for this interest in poppets. later in the day she found out what it was. quentin was carving other little lady-figures like those he had made years ago for master gay. he had also made the figures of a bishop, a king, a monk, and a merchant; with a grotesque hump-backed hook-nosed dwarf for the jester. it looked as if a giant were about to play chess. padraig, an irish scribe who had made some designs for the queen's tapestry-workers, was using his best penmanship to copy certain letters on fine parchment. giovanni, who had sprung up from somewhere, was making a harness-like contrivance of hempen cords, iron hooks and rods, and wooden pulleys. when finished it went into a small bag of tow-cloth; if stretched out it filled the end of a rough wooden frame. joan began to suspect that the figures were for a puppet-show. "it is time to explain," quentin said to the others. "we can trust joan. she is as true as steel." joan's heart leaped with pride. if milan had only honor left, her children would keep that. "it is this, joan," quentin went on kindly. "in time of war any messenger may be searched, and we do not know when war will come. king henry desires above all things the peace of his realm. he will not openly take the side of the lombard cities against frederick barbarossa--yet. but he will throw all his influence into the scale if he can. the queen has hit upon a way by which letters can be sent safely to the courts of brittany, france, castile, sicily, and even to saxony, which is in barbarossa's own domains. giovanni will travel as a peddler, with the weaver-boy cimarron as his servant or companion, as may seem best. he will have a pack full of such pretty toys as maidens love,--broidered veils, pomanders, perfumed gloves, girdles--nothing costly enough to tempt robbers--and these wooden poppets of ours. we cannot trust the tiring-women in times like these, but he may be able to give the letters into the hands of the queens themselves. no one, surely, will suspect a poppet. these gowns and wimples will display the fashions, and i had another reason for telling you to bring them all. if he cannot get his chance as a peddler he can hang about the court with a puppet-show. now, look here." quentin took the softly smiling poppet and began to twist her neck. when he had unscrewed the dainty little head a deep hole appeared in the middle of the figure. into this padraig fitted a roll of parchment, and over it a wooden peg. "may she keep it?" quentin asked gently. "there is need for haste, and i have not time to make another figure." joan swallowed hard. marguerite had heard many secrets that no one else knew. "aye," she said, "i will let her go." then each little figure in turn received its secret to keep, and joan, lady philippa, and the other maids sewed furiously for a day and a half. each princess was gowned in robes woven with the arms of her kingdom. the other figures were suitably dressed. the weights which made the jester turn a somersault were gold inside a lead casing--giovanni might need that. there were jewels hidden safely in his dagger-hilt and cimarron's, but to all appearance they were two common chapmen. they were gone for a long time, but marguerite--the only poppet to return--came back safely, and inside her discreet bosom were letters for the king. cimarron brought her to the door of gilles the hurer, and told joan that giovanni, after selling the puppet-show, had stayed in alexandria to fight for milan. armorer's song by the armorer's tower the fire burned bright in the long black shadows of coming night. quoth franklin to tomkyn, "twenty to one we shall both be gone ere to-morrow's sun- shoot a round for the love o' the game!" by ascalon towers the sun blazed red where one stood living and twenty were dead,- quoth roger to raimond, "we be but few, yet keener the triumph when steel rings true- break a lance for the faith and the name!" by london tower the watch-fires glowed on the troops that marched by the roman road. quoth drake to howard, "armadas be tall, yet the proudest oak in a gale may fall,- take a chance for belphoebe's fame! "they live in valhalla who fought for their land with dauntless heart and ungrudging hand, they went to the task with a laugh and a jest,- peace to their souls, wherever they rest! and we of their blood, wherever we go, by the carib seas or the greenland floe, with heart unwearied and hand unstayed, must win or lose by the law they made,- strike hard--for the love o' the game!" xix dickon at the forge how a sussex smith found the world come to him in the weald the smithy was very small compared with a modern foundry. it was not large even for a country blacksmith's shop; the cottage close by was hardly bigger; yet that forge made iron-work which went all over england. it was on one of the sussex roads leading into lewes. often a knight would stop to have something done to his own armor or his horse's gear, for the war-horse also wore armor,--on head and breast at least. some of the work of old adam smith had gone as far as jerusalem. dickon felt occasionally that if he were a spear-head or a dagger, he would stand more chance of seeing the world than he did as the son of his father. adam was secretly proud of the lad who at thirteen could do nearly as much as he himself could. that was saying more than a little, for adam smith had the knack of making every blow count by putting it in exactly the right place. a man who can do that will double his strength. dickon had inherited the knack, but he had something else besides, of which his father knew nothing. he never did a piece of work that he did not try to make it look right. he could see that when the bar that latched a gate was of a certain length, not too small or too large, it pleased both eye and hand. he did not consider the hinges on the door better looking for being made into an elaborate pattern, unless the pattern was a good one. in short, dickon had what is known as a sense of beauty. some have it and some have not. those who have can invent beautiful patterns, while those who have not can only copy,--and they do not always copy accurately. it may seem strange to speak of beauty in the iron-work of a little country smithy, but nothing is more beautiful in its way than good iron-work. there are gates, hinges, locks, keys and other furnishings which are so well designed that one is never weary of studying them. armor has been made beautiful in its time; so have swords, halberds, daggers, fire-baskets, and fire-dogs. because iron is so simple, and there is no chance of getting an effect by using color or gilding, the task of making it beautiful is unlike that of painting a picture. the beauty of iron-work is the line, the curve, the proportion. if these are wrong one sees it at once; and the same is true when the work is right. most of the work of adam smith, while strong and well wrought, was only by accident good to look at. dickon was not allowed to do anything that his father did not oversee, and adam smith saw to it that no job left his shop which was not well done. dickon had found out, little by little, that when a thing is strong enough for its use, with no unnecessary clumsiness, and the handles, catches and rivetings are where they ought to be for strength and convenience, it usually looks very well. that is to say, beautiful iron-work is useful and economical. dickon was hammering away, one golden autumn morning, on the latch for a gate. the cattle had broken into the fore acre again, and adam, who had to go to lewes on business, told dickon to make that latch and do it properly, so that it would keep the gate shut. old wat had gone into the forest for some wood, for the great belt of woodland called the weald was all around, and the oak from it served for fuel. dickon had never seen a coal fire in his life. forges like this were scattered all through the weald, and what with the iron-workers and the ship-builders, and the people who wainscoted their houses with good sussex oak, there is no weald left nowadays. that part of the country keeps its name, and there are groves of oak here and there, but that is all. dickon could see from the door the acorns dropping from the great oak that sheltered the smithy and was so huge that a man could not circle it with his arms. he began to wonder if he could put some sort of ornamental work on that latch. no one could have looked less like an artist than the big, muscular youth in his leathern apron, with his rough tow-head and square-chinned face; but inside his brain was a thought working itself out. he took an oak twig and laid it in this position and that, on the iron. it is not very easy to work out a design in iron. the iron must be heated, and beaten or bent into shape while it is soft. there is no making a sketch and taking your time with the brushes. dickon thought he would see if he could draw a pattern. he took a bit of coal and a wooden tile fallen from the roof, and began to combine the lines of the gate-latch with those of the twig. he had not copied iron utensils and other patterns without knowing how to draw the lines of an oak leaf, but he found that somehow or other the leaf, as an ornament to the latch, did not look right. the cluster of acorns was better, but even that did not fit. dickon's feeling, though he did not think it out, was that iron is strong, and an oak tree is one of the strongest of trees, and therefore the oak was suitable to decorate sussex iron. he changed the lines, rubbing out one and then another, until he had got a set of curves and little nubbly knot-like ornaments which were not exactly like the oak twig, but suited the lines of the latch. the leaf-like side-pieces covered the parts of the latch where the fingers and thumb would rest in opening the gate, and the projecting handle might be made into something suggesting an acorn-cluster. he nodded thoughtfully. "that's rather good," said a voice over his shoulder. "where did you learn to draw?" dickon jumped; he had been so busy that he had not heard the sound of a horse's hoofs on the turf. the stranger who stood there, bridle over arm, was a rather slender man, five or six years older than dickon, with deep-set hazel eyes, fair hair, and muddy boots that looked as if he had come a long journey. "nobody never taught me," said dickon soberly. "i was trying to find out how to do it." "you found out then. it is good--don't touch it. is it for that gate-latch? go on and finish the job; i won't hinder you. i'm a sussex man, but i never came through the weald this way. i lost my road, and they told me this would take me to lewes. the nag and i shall both be the better for an hour's rest." dickon blew up the fire and went to work, with strong, deft strokes. he was not a shy lad, particularly when he was doing what he could do well. he was used to working with people watching him. not seldom they were making themselves disagreeable because the work was not done more quickly, but iron cannot be hurried. if a smith does not mean to spoil the temper of his work, he must keep his own temper well in hand. the young man led his horse into the shade, and came to watch dickon. as the leaf-curves began to stand out and the nubs of the acorn-cluster took shape he seemed more and more interested. once he began to ask a question, but stopped himself, as if he knew that when a man has his whole mind on a task he cannot spare any part of it for talk. dickon almost forgot that he was there. he was intent upon putting exactly the right hollows and veins in the leaf, and giving exactly the right twist to the handle. at last it was done. dickon straightened his back and looked at it, as the sunlight wavered upon it through the branches. the stranger clapped him on the shoulder. "it is better than the sketch," he cried heartily. "it is good indeed. i have been in london, lad, in the low countries and in france, and i never saw a sweeter bit of work. how didst know the true line for that handle?" [illustration: "'it is better than the sketch,' he cried heartily"] "that's to make it open properly," dickon explained, "fits the hand, like." the other nodded approvingly. "i see. i learned that same lesson in my pottery. 'wilfrid,' my old master used to tell me, 'never thee make too small an ear to thy jugs if thou lik'st the maids to love 'ee.' there's a knack, you see, in making a handle with a good grip to it, that will neither spill the milk nor hinder pouring. my wife she helped me there. she loves good work as well as i do." adam smith, coming up the lewes road next day, could not think what had happened when he saw dickon in eager talk with a stranger. the boy had never been given to words. he was more taken aback when master wilfrid told him that his son had the making of a rare workman. he answered gruffly, stroking his big beard: "aye, the lad's well enow. latch done, dickon? go and fit it to yon gate." wilfrid had come back to england full of new ideas, and ambitious above all for the honor of english craftsmen. when he found this youth working out, without any model at all, a thing so good as the oak-leaved gate-latch, he was surer than ever that the land he loved could raise her own smiths. it was his ambition to make his own house beautiful within and without, as were some of the merchants' houses he had seen in cities. he further astonished the old smith by telling him that if dickon would put some time on work along his own lines, he would pay him double or treble what he would earn at common labor. "you see," explained the potter, as he showed the design he had drafted for a carved oaken chest, "there's much to be thought of in iron-work. you have to make it strong as well as handsome, and what's more, nine times out of ten you have to fit it to the work of some other man. it'd never do for the hinges and handles on this coffer to spoil the looks o' the carving, and that's to be done in london, d' ye see? belike i'll have you make those first, dickon, and let quentin suit his pattern to yours. he can." "how does he make his design?" queried dickon. "work it out as he goes along--like iron-work?" "not always," wilfrid answered. "he's got a many patterns drawn out on parchment besides what he carries in his head. but they're only for show--to give an idea of the style. when he gets the size and shape and the wood he's to use settled, he changes the pattern according to his own judgment. if a wood-carver doesn't know his trade the design can be made by an artist, and all he need do is to follow it. but that's not my idea of good work. unless you've made such a thing yourself you don't know how the lines are going to look. i'd never try to make a design for a fire-dog, and i doubt you'd make a poor job at shaping an earthen bowl. then, if you want to suit yourself and your customer, you'll be changing your pattern with every job. the work ought to grow--like a plant." "i know," dickon commented. "you make an iron pot for a woman, and another for her neighbor, and ten to one the second must be a bit bigger or narrower or somehow different. you've got to go by your eye." "they say," wilfrid went on musingly, "that there's like to be mechanical ways to help the work--turn it out quicker--do the planing and gouging with some kind of engine and finish by hand. it seemed to me that would take the life out o' the carving. i said so to quentin, and he laughed. he said a man could use any tool to advantage if he had the head, but without thought you couldn't make a shovel go right. i reckon that's so." adam smith nodded. "half the smiths don't know the way to use a hammer," he said, "and well-nigh all the rest don't know what they're making. you stick to the old forge a while yet, lad. there's a bit to learn afore you'll be master o' the trade." "your father's right," master wilfrid admitted. "you'll not waste your time by learning all that he can teach you. as i was saying to you yesterday, you've been doing good plain work and learned judgment. you know how to bend a rod so that it'll be strong, and that will make it look strong. and i'll warrant when you come to make a grille for a pair of iron gates you'll know where to put your cross-bars." for all that, master wilfrid did not mean to lose sight of dickon. he knew how much a youth could learn by talking with men of other crafts, and he intended that dickon should have his chance. he himself had lost no opportunity, while on his travels, of becoming acquainted with men who were doing good work in england, and now and then one of these men would turn off the main road to see him at his pottery or his home. when the time came to forge a pair of iron gates to the parish church, he saw to it that dickon got the refusal of the work. with his favorite tools and his father's gruff "god speed ye, lad!" dickon rode forth to his first work for himself, and it was done to the satisfaction of every one. "i knew that sussex brains could handle that job," wilfrid exulted, as they looked at the finished task. in days when churches and cathedrals were open all day long, it was desirable to have some sort of open-work railing to keep stray beasts out of the chancel. in a more splendid building this railing might have been of silver, but the homely farmer-folk thought the iron of the weald was good enough for them. up along the grassy track past the south door of the church rode a company of travelers, middle-class folk by their dress. as they came abreast of the gate the foremost called out, "ho, wilfrid, is there any tavern hereabouts? we be lost sheep in the wilderness. the abbey guest-house is already full and they will not take us in." "faith, it's good to see thee here, robert edrupt," the potter answered. "i could house three or four of you, but it's harvest time, that's a fact. no, there's no tavern in the village. you see, most of the folk that travel this way go to the abbey for a lodging." "we'll stick together, i reckon," answered edrupt, "if you can give us some kind o' shelter, and the makings of a meal. a barn would serve." "i'll do better than that," wilfrid assured them. "i'll take ye to cold harbor. it's part of a roman house that we uncovered near the pottery. the walls were used in the old farmer's time for a granary. it's weather-proof, and there's a stone hearth, and dickon here will help swing a crane for the kettles. we've plenty stores if there's a cook among ye." "we can make shift," laughed edrupt. "i'll come to the house to-morrow and gossip a bit. quentin here has your carved coffer for ye." "and here's the lad that made the hinges and the handles," wilfrid added, with a hand on the big youth's shoulder. "sithee here, dickon, you show them their way to their lodging, and i'll e'en ride home and tell edwitha to spare some pots and kettles for the cooking." thus dickon was shoved all in a moment, in the edge of an autumn evening, into the company of merchants and craftsmen such as he had never met. the north-countryman, alan of york, was a glazier; david saumond, a scotch stone-mason coming up from canterbury to do some work for an abbey; guy of limoges was a goldsmith; crispin eyre, a shoemaker of london; there were two or three merchants, some weavers newly arrived from overseas, various servants and horse-boys, and two peddlers of dark foreign aspect. the talk was mostly in a mixture of french and english, but dickon understood this better than he could speak it, and several of the men were as english as himself. in the merry company at supper he saw what wilfrid had meant when he said that hand-skill without head-wisdom was walking blind-fold, and work done alone was limping labor. it was the england of the guilds breaking bread by that fire. the wander-years fair is the light on the castle wall- (heigh-ho, for the road!) merry the wassail in hearth-warm hall- (blither the call of the road!) when the moonlight silvers the sleeping plain, and the wind is calling to heart and brain, and the blood beats quick and the soul is fain- ah, follow the open road! low croons the mother while children sleep- (heigh-ho, for the road!) and firelight shadows are warm and deep- (dearer the call of the road!) where the red fox runs and the merlin sings, and the hedge is alive with the whir of wings, and the wise earth whispers of nameless things- ah, follow the open road! safe is the nook we have made our own- (heigh-ho, for the road!) dear the comrades our hearts have known- (hark to the call of the road!) trumpets are calling and torches flare, and a man must do, and a man must dare,- whether to victory or despair,- come, follow the open road! xx the wings of the dragon how padraig made irish wit a journeyman to florentine genius padraig was having his first view of a foreign country. england, to be sure, was somewhat strange to a boy who had never before been outside ireland. brother basil, who had taught him all that he knew of writing, reading, painting and other arts, had come to england on business for the irish abbeys and was going no further. padraig felt that he wanted to see more of the world. perhaps the wise monk felt that unless his pupil had the chance now to wander and come back, he would run away and never return at all; at any rate he told the youth that this would be a good time to make the pilgrimage to rome if he could. there was peace in lombardy for the moment, and the pope, driven out more than once by the warring emperor of germany, was now in the vatican, again. a fishing-boat, slipping over to calais in the light of a windy dawn, carried one passenger, a red-headed boy in a hooded cloak of rough black frieze. padraig's own feet bore him from town to town until now, in a french city, he stood in the doorway of a gray and stately church alive with pictures. on a scaffold slung up behind the altar a painter sat working on a new altar-piece. this was something which padraig had never seen. he had painted pictures himself on parchment, and drawn designs in color for the craftsmen, but a wall-painting so full of life and color that it looked like a live angel come down from the skies, he had never seen made by any man. it was in three parts, filling three arches, the middle one larger than the others. in the center was the beautiful brooding mother with the child in her arms, and her dull red mantle seemed to lift and float like a sunset cloud. in the narrower spaces were figures of saints. one, already finished, was an old man in the dress of a hermit, with a hind; the graceful creature nestled its head against him. an arrow transfixed his knee, and padraig knew that this was saint giles, patron saint of cripples. the last of the three, on which the artist was now working, was saint margaret and the dragon. the dragon was writhing away, with a dreadful look of rage and fear, before the cross in the hands of the brave, beautiful young girl. the sun crept through a loophole window and made the pictures, at the end of the long vista of gray arches, as real as living beings. even at this distance, nevertheless, the trained eye of padraig detected something the matter with that dragon. the artist painted, scraped out, scowled, pondered and finally flung down his brushes in impatient disgust. he moved away, his eyes still on the unfinished work, and backed directly into padraig. "what--oh, i did not know that there was any one here. look at that dragon, did you ever see such a creature!" "softly, softly, matteo," spoke a superior-looking man in the dress of a sub-prior, behind them. "what is wrong with the picture? it looks very well, to me. we must have it finished, you understand, before the feast of saint giles, in any case. you must remember, dear son, that these works are not for the purpose of delighting the eye. the figure of our lady would be more impressive if you were to add a gold border to the mantle, would it not?" padraig retreated. he was still grinning over the expression on the artist's face, when he took out a bit of crayon and at a safe distance made a sketch of the pompous church-man on a convenient stone. having caught the likeness he took from his scrip a half-completed "book of legends," and in the wide-open mouth of a squirming dragon which formed the initial he drew the head and shoulders of the half-swallowed sub-prior. just as he sat back to survey the design, matteo strode down the path and stopped with his hand on the gate. "did you see him?" the artist spluttered. "did you hear him? because he is the secretary of the archbishop and keeps the pay-roll he thinks he can instruct me in my work! if i had to paint the things he describes i would whitewash every one of my pictures and spend the rest of my days in a scullery! there, at least, no fault would be found because the work was too well done! "that monster will be the death of me yet. i know that le gargouille never looked like that. he was a great dragon, you know, who lived in the seine and ravaged the country until he was destroyed by saint romaine. they do not infest our rivers any more--they have taken to the church. my faith, if i knew where to find one i would lead that stupid monk down there by the ear and show him what a dragon is like. i never saw a dragon--it is not my business to paint dragons--but i know that they ought to be slippery shining green like a frog, or a lizard--and i cannot get the color." "is this anything like?" asked padraig, and he held up the book. padraig's mind worked by leaps, brother basil used to say, and it had made a jump while the artist was talking. the most that he had thought of, when he made the sketch in his book, was that the face of the sub-prior would be a good one to use some day for a certain kind of character; and then it had occurred to him to fancy the dragon showing his appreciation of the dignitary in a natural way. he had already done the dragon with the last of the green that he and brother basil brought from ireland, before he came to france, and it was a clear transparent brilliant color that looked like a new-born water-plant leaf in the sun. he had watched lizards and frogs, in long dreamy afternoons by the fishing-pools, too many times not to remember. the painter's mobile dark face changed to half a dozen expressions in a minute. he chuckled over the caricature; then he looked at the work more closely; then he fluttered over the other leaves of the book. "where did you get the color for this?" he queried. "i made it," said padraig. "can you make it again?" padraig hesitated. "is there a forest near by?" "forest--no; but why? for the hunting of dragons?" "n-no, b-but--" padraig was apt to stammer when excited--"if i had balsam like ours i could make the green. we had none, and so we hunted until we found the right resin--brother basil and i." "basil ossorin, an irish monk from england?" asked matteo quickly. "i met him ten years since when he was on his way to byzantium. if he was your master you have had good teaching." padraig nodded. brother basil was the man whom he best loved. "there is no trouble about the balsam if you know it when you see it," the artist went on. "i will take you to a place where anything may be bought--cobalt, lapis lazuli, cinnabar, orpiment, sandarac--and it is honestly sold." padraig numbered the matters off on his fingers. "copper,--and venice turpentine,--and saffron, to make him yellow underneath like water-snakes in an old pond. his wings must be smooth--and green--bright, and mottled with rusty brown--the sun comes from behind, and he must look as if it were shining through the halo round the maiden's head." "i wonder now about that balsam," mused the painter. padraig drew an outline in the dust on the stone flags. "the tree is like this--the leaf and berry like this." matteo laughed with pure satisfaction. "that is all right; the tree grows in the abbey gardens. come, young imp with the crest of fire, come quickly, and we will have a glorious day." it is not certain who painted more of that dragon, the master or the journeyman. padraig directed the making of the vivid gold-green as if he were the artist and the other the grinder of paints. matteo dragged old brother joseph, the caretaker, from his work in the crypt to scrape the original dragon off the wall until only the outline of curling body and webbed wings remained. the design was all right, for that was matteo's especial skill. he could make a wall-painting as decorative and well-proportioned as the stiff symbolic figures, and yet make the picture natural. there was a fearful moment when the paint was ready and they made the trial, for neither was sure that the pigment would look right on this new surface. but it gleamed a living green. padraig brightened the scaled body with yellow where the light struck it. matteo used his knowledge of armor to deepen the shadows with a cunning blend of blue and bronze that made the scales look metallic. each worked on a wing, spreading it with sure swift strokes across the base of the scene. just as padraig drew his brush for the last time along the bony framework of the clutching talons, the painter caught him by the arm and drew him back down the nave. "now look!" he said. the dragon wallowed at the feet of saint margaret in furious, bewildered rage. old brother joseph, coming out of the corner where he had been sitting half asleep, looked actually frightened at the creature. matteo, well pleased, did not wait for the verdict of the monks, but took padraig home to his lodgings in a narrow street of the town, and they sat up late that night in talk over many things. the painter was a florentine, and when at home he lived in a street even then called the street of the painters, in florence. he had been in london years before, in paris, in rome, in spain, in sicily. now he had commissions for the decorating of a palace in rouen, and he took padraig's breath away by suggesting that they work together. "some day," matteo averred thoughtfully, "there will be cathedrals in italy, france, normandy, aquitaine, england, greater than the world has seen. there will be cliffs and forests of stone-work--arches, towers, pinnacles, groined and vaulted roofs, hundreds of statues of the saints. every inch of it will be made beautiful as the forest is--with vines and creeping mosses, blossoms and the little wood-folk that shelter among trees. there will be great windows of stained and painted glass. there will be altar-pieces like those that we only dream to-day. i tell you, patricio mio, we are in the dawn of the millennium of the builders. what has been done already is nothing--nothing!" padraig found in the following months that a group of young italians, matteo and some of his friends, were working along a new line, with models and methods that accounted for the beauty of their achievements. the figures that they painted met with scant appreciation oftentimes, for many of the churchmen desired only symbolic figures of bright colors, with gilding to make them rich. moreover, there was a very general disbelief in the permanence of wall-painting. walls were damp, and the only really satisfactory decoration thus far had been the costly and tedious mosaic. made of thousands of tiny blocks of stone of various colors, the design of the mosaic had to be suited to the infinite network of little cracks and the knowledge of the worker. kings and noblemen usually preferred tapestry which could be saved in case of disaster, and carried about, to costly wall-paintings which must remain where they were. yet padraig found matteo's rich and graceful figures equal in their way to the stone sculptures of any french master, and said so. "it is like this, comrade," the florentine explained, slipping his arm across padraig's shoulders as they strolled past the church of saint ouen. "a picture is a soul; its life on earth depends upon the body that it inhabits; and we have not yet found out how to make its body immortal. i do not believe that my paintings will live more than a few years. you see, a mural painting is not like your illuminations. you can keep a book safe in a chest. but a painting on plaster--or on a wooden panel--is besieged day and night by dampness, and dryness, and dust, and smoke, changes of heat and cold,--everything. the wall may crack. the roof may take fire,--especially when pigeons and sparrows nest in the beams. the mere action of the air on any painting must be proved by years. i got my lesson on that when i was not as old as you. i heard from an ancient monk of a marvelous madonna, painted from a living model--a beautiful girl pointed out for years as the madonna of san raffaele. i tramped over the apennines to see it. patricio mio, the face was black! the artist had used oil with resin and wax, and the picture had turned as black as a florentine lily! i never told the old man about it, and i praised the work to his heart's content; but to myself i said that i would dream no more of my own immortal fame. i dream only of the work of others." "but suppose that a way could be found to make the colors lasting?" queried padraig. "ah, that would be a real paradise of painters--until some one came along with a torch. i think, myself, that some day a drying medium will be found which will make it possible to paint in oils for all time to come. there is painting on wood, and on dry plaster--and fresco, where you paint on the plaster while it is still damp. in fresco you must lay out only the work that can be finished that day. me, i am content for the time to be a fresco painter." "and if it is all to vanish in a few years, why do we paint?" mused padraig with a swift melancholy in his voice. matteo's hand fell heavily upon his arm. "because we must not lose our souls--that is why. the life of our work will last long enough to be seen and known by others. they will remember it, and do their work better. thus it will go on, generation after generation, until painters come who can use all that we have learned since rome fell, and cap it with new visions. every generation has its dragon to dispose of. when i have tamed my dragon he will take me to the skies--maybe." it was not long after this that matteo, overhauling the flat leather-bound coffer in which he kept his belongings, dragged up from the bottom of the collection some parchments covered with miscellaneous sketches, mostly of heads and figures. he had received a message from a sharp-faced italian peddler-boy that day, and had been looking rather grave. on the plaster of the wall, in the sunset light, he began to draw, roughing it out with quick sure strokes, a procession of men and horses with some massive wheeled vehicle in the center. presently this was seen to be a staging like a van, drawn by six white oxen harnessed in scarlet. upon it stood churchmen in robes of ceremony, grouped about a tall standard rising high above their heads--a globe surmounted by a crucifix. padraig knew what this was. it was the carocchio or sacred car bearing the standard of milan--but matteo was a florentine. "patricio caro," said the artist turning to his young pupil, "to-morrow we shall have to part. i have told the prince that you are quite capable of finishing his banquet-hall, and that i have other business. so i have, but not what he may think. i had word to-day that barbarossa has crossed the alps. this time it will be a fight to the end. "you know, for we have talked often of it, that the league of the lombard cities is the great hope of the communes in italy. moreover, it is your fight as well as ours. if the empire conquers it will stamp those communes flat, and take good care that the cities make no headway toward further resistance. the next step--for frederick has said that he is another charlemagne--will be the conquest of france, and then he will try to hurl the whole force of his empire against henry plantagenet, his only great rival. myself, i doubt if he can do that. when men do not want to fight they seldom win battles. "now there are three hundred young men of the leading houses of lombardy who have sworn to guard the carocchio with their lives. the archbishop and his priests will stand upon the car in the battle and administer the sacrament to the dying. if the emperor takes it this time it will be after the death of every man of the 'juramento.' i am a florentine, that is true, but i shall be a foot-soldier in that fight. if we live, we will have our cities free. if we die--it is for our own cities as well as theirs. "this is what i want you to do, little brother. ah, yes, to die is not always the most difficult thing! these are the names and many of the faces of the 'juramento.' keep them, and to-morrow, when i am gone, copy this sketch of the carocchio going into the battle. then, if i never come back, there will still be some one to paint the picture. when you find a prince, or some wealthy merchant, who will let you paint the carocchio on his wall, do it and keep alive the glory of milan. you will find some milanese who will welcome you, however the game goes. and the picture will be so good--your picture and mine--that men will see and remember it whether they know the story or not. if they copy it, although the faces may not be like, they will yet carry the meaning--the standard of the free city above the conflict. your promise, patricio mio--and then--addio!" padraig promised. the next day, when he came back to the little room at the end of the narrow stair, there was only the picture on the white sunlit wall. st. eloi's blessing clovis the king, proud of his golden thrones, granted our saint broad lands, whereon he should build cloisters, work in gold and precious stones and carve in silver as it might be wood, and for god's glory--and the king's fair name- do miracles with metal and with flame. so to the world's end, where long-hoarded pelf shone forth new-hallowed in the goldsmith's hand, saint eloi's craftsmen, as long since himself, were honored where they went in every land, yet still his heart was ever ours, and stayed here in limoges, the city that he made. then all one night he knelt for us in prayer at the high altar, suing for this grace,- that his fine art, in his true people's care, should ripen rich as in none other place, and if gold fail, beauty to our desire should we create, out of the earth and fire. all secret work of dainty orfreny couchet in jeweled paternes brightly quaint, balass and emeraut, sapphire, all should be set in the triptych of the pictured saint, or with new dreams of unwrought beauty haunted, blend in amail deep hues of light enchanted. then vanished all the vision--saint eloi with trembling saw it swallowed up in night. none may escape the laws of grief or joy, and when the day is done, then fails the light. yet still he prayed--the dragon-darkness fled, and a new life dawned, risen from the dead. soft smoothness like a creamy petaled rose, rich roundness like the sun-filled apricot, gold garlands twisted by some wind that blows from what strange land we craftsmen marvel not. and in this porcelain cup (he said) shall pour joy of life, joy of craft, forevermore. xxi gold of byzantium how guy of limoges taught the art of byzantium to wilfrid of sussex guy bouverel was again in his own country, where he was called, according to the habit of the day, guy of limoges. he had spent nearly ten years working with eloy, the master artist, in limoges, and studying the art of enameling on copper, silver and gold. the new name was to him what a degree from some famous university is to the modern scientist. when a man was called guy of limoges, william of sens, or cornelys of arras, it usually meant that he was a good example of whatever made the place mentioned famous. guy bouverel might be anybody. the name was known among the goldsmiths of guthrum's lane in london; that was all. but guy of limoges meant a reputation for enamel-work. the matter on which he was meditating, however, as he left cold harbor and walked up toward the house of wilfrid the potter, was clean outside his own craft. the king, being much pleased with certain work done at the abbey for which guy was bound, had questioned him about it, and ended by giving him a rather large order. brother basil, a wise monk from an irish monastery, had come to england to gather artists and artisans, and was for the time at this abbey in the north, directing and aiding some work for the church. several of the company that lay the night before at cold harbor were going there, and among them they would be able to do what the king required. the dowry of princess joan was to include a table of gold twelve feet long, twenty-four gold cups and as many plates, and some other trifles. a part of this work would be done in limoges; but the king seemed to think that the rest might be done in england quite as well. he had also ordered stained glass for a chapel, and some reliquaries, or cases for precious relics, and three illuminated missals. the sicilian court was one of the most splendid in europe. the king evidently meant his daughter's setting out to be nowise shabby. a chest of gold was to be delivered by the chancellor to guy, and he was to accompany it, with its guard, to its destination. one of the king's accountants would be nominally in charge, but of course if anything should happen to the chest, guy would be in difficulties. there were ingots, or lumps, of gold, cast in molds for convenience in packing, and to be used in the goldsmith-work; but the greater part of the gold was coined bezants--coins worth about half a sovereign in modern money, and minted in byzantium. this would pay for materials brought from almost every corner of the known world, and for the work of the skilled metal-worker, enamel-worker, glassmaker, and lumineur who would fill the order. tomaso the physician had established himself in a half-ruined tower not far from the workshop on the abbey lands, and would aid them in working out certain problems; and altogether, it was such a prospect as any man of guy's age and ambition might find agreeable. "hola, lad!" called ranulph the troubadour cheerily. "have you the world on your shoulders, or only some new undertaking?" guy laughed, with a certain sense of relief. he had known ranulph for some time, and it occurred to him that here he might safely find a listener. "do you know a certain clerk named simon gastard?" he asked. "i have not that pleasure," laughed the troubadour. "ought i to know him?" "not if you can help it," said guy, "if he is the same gastard whom i heard of in france five years ago. didst ever hear of sweating gold?" "it sounds like the tale of king midas," ranulph chuckled. "how, exactly, does it happen?" "it does not happen," guy answered, "except an itching palm be in the treasury. there was a clerk in paris who took a cask full of gold pieces and sand, which being rolled about, gold more or less was ground off by the sand without great change in the look of the coin. then, the coins being taken out in a sieve and the sand mixed with water, the gold dust sank to the bottom and was melted and sold, while the coins were paid on the nail. i had as lief get money by paring a cheese, but that's as you look at it. if i have to travel with this fellow i should like to know that there is nothing unusual about the chest our gold is in. i cannot keep awake all the time, and there is enough in that chest to make a dozen men rich. i knew a rascal once who made a hole in the bottom of a chest, stole most of the coin, and then nailed the chest to the floor to hide its emptiness." ranulph laughed sympathetically. "you do see the wrong side of mankind when you have anything to do with treasure." "unless you know something of it," returned guy grimly, "you won't be allowed to handle treasure more than once." "true," admitted ranulph. "why not take turns watching the chest?" "the others who are bound for the abbey have gone on. i had to wait for the chancellor, and then i saw gastard." "ask the potter," said ranulph at last. "he can be trusted, and he may know of some one who has a chest that will defy your clerk. i suppose you don't expect him to steal it, chest and all?" "no; i have had dealings with the captain of the guard before. he is sir stephen giffard, a west-country knight, and he will send men who can be trusted. the trouble is, you see, that i am not sure about gastard. but he could not object to the secure packing of the gold." by this time they had reached wilfrid's house, and he was at home. when guy unfolded his problem the potter looked thoughtful. "i may have the very thing you want," he said. "come here." he led the way into a small room which he used as a study, and dragged into the middle of the floor a carved oaken chest bound with iron. there was just enough carved work on it to add to its look of strength. two leopards' heads in wrought iron, with rings in their jaws, formed handles on the ends. the corners were shielded with rounded iron plates suggesting oak leaves. the ornamental wrought iron hinges, in an oak and acorn pattern, stretched more than half way across the lid and down the back. iron bolts passing through staples held the lid, and acorn-headed nails studded it all over. in fact, the iron was so spread over it in one way and another that to break it up one would have needed a small saw to work in and out among the nails, or a stone-crusher. when the lid was thrown back, more iron appeared, a network of small rods bedded into the inner surface of lid, bottom and sides. the staples holding the lock went clean through the front to the inside of the box. "what a piece of cunning workmanship!" said guy in admiration. "it is like some of the german work, and yet that never came over seas." "no," said wilfrid, "it was done here in the sussex weald. i had the idea of it when i came back from france, and young dickon, whom you saw last night, made the iron-work. he began with the hinges and handles, and then quentin of peronne did the wood-work and brought the chest here, and dickon fitted in these grilles yesterday." "will you sell it?" asked guy. the other hesitated. "i had meant to keep it to show the abbey folk," he said. "i had thought it might get dickon a job at some cathedral." "we'll use it to pack some gold-work that's to go to the king," averred guy promptly. "will that content you?" "it ought to," smiled wilfrid, well satisfied, as he took the contents of the coffer out and shut down the lid. "what's your price?" asked guy. wilfrid hesitated again. it might have been thought that he was wondering how much he could possibly ask. but it was not that. "i met you in london, master bouverel," he said finally, "and i understood you to be a worker in amail." amail was the common name for enamel. the corruption may have come from the fancied likeness of the work to the richly ornamented "mail," or from the fact that the enamel covered the gold as mail covers a man's body. "amail, gold and silver work, and jewelry," said guy. "is it hard to learn?" "that depends," returned the goldsmith. "i was brought up to the craft, and i've been at it ten year now in limoges, but i'm a prentice lad beside the masters." "well, it's like this," said the potter slowly. "i saw amail in france and limoges that fair made me silly. i know a bit of glass-work, and something of my own trade, but this was beyond me. i'll never be aught but a potter, but if you can give me a piece o' that i'll give you the chest and what you like besides to make up the price." guy smiled--he had never suspected that wilfrid felt about the enameling as he himself did. "you shall have it and welcome," he answered. "but why not come to the abbey and learn to do the work yourself--if you can leave your own workshop? we can do with more men, and there might be things about the glazing and that which would be useful in your pottery." wilfrid met the suggestion gladly. he could make arrangements to leave the pottery in the hands of his head man for a while; for all the work they did was common ware which a man could almost make in his sleep. if he could study some of the secrets of glazing and color work with guy, he might come back with ideas worth the journey. he did not tell edwitha anything about the enamel-work. that was to be a surprise. it was some time before they met again at the abbey. the gold arrived safely in due season, and simon gastard bade it good-by, with very sour looks. it was placed in charge of brother basil and tomaso, and wilfrid, who had been a master potter, took his place as apprentice to a new craft. his experience as a potter helped him, however, for the processes were in some ways rather alike. at last he was ready to make the gift he intended for edwitha. padraig, the young artist and scribe who was making most of their designs, drafted a pattern for the work, but wilfrid shook his head. "that is too fine," he said. "too many flowers and leaves--finikin work. make it simpler. every one of those lines means a separate gold thread. it will be all gold network and no flowers." "as you will," padraig answered. "it's the man that's to wear the cap that can say does it fit." and he tried again. wilfrid himself modified the design in one or two details, for he had made pottery long enough to have ideas of his own. the enamel was to show dewberry blossoms and fruit, white and red, with green leaves, on a blue ground; the band of enamel around the gold cup was to be in little oblong sections divided by strips of ruby red. it was not like anything else they had made. it was as english as a hawthorn hedge. very thin and narrow strips of gold were softened in the fire until they could be bent, in and out, in a network corresponding to the outlines of the design. this was fastened to the groundwork with flour paste. then it was heated until the gold soldered itself on. powdered glass of the red chosen for the berries was taken up in a tiny spoon made of a quill, and ladled carefully into each minute compartment, and packed firmly down. then it was put into a copper case with small holes in the top, smooth inside, and rough like a grater outside, to let out the hot air and keep out hot ashes. the case had a long handle, and coals were piled all around it in a wall. when it had been heated long enough to melt the glass it was taken out and set aside to cool. this took some hours. when it was cold the glass had melted and sunk into the compartment as dissolved sugar sinks in a glass. more glass was put in and packed down, and the process repeated. when no more could possibly be heaped on the jewel-like bit of ruby glass inside the tiny gold wall, the white blossoms, green leaves, blue ground, and strips of deeper red, were made in turn. only one color was handled at a time. if the glass used in the separate layers was not quite the same shade, it gave a certain depth and changefulness of color. overheating, haste or carelessness would ruin the whole. only the patient, intent care of a worker who loved every step of the work would make the right limoges enamel. this was one of the simpler processes which are still known. the polishing was yet to be done. a goatskin was stretched smooth on a wooden table; the medallion was fixed in a piece of wax for a handle, and polished first on a smooth piece of bone and then on the goatskin. each medallion was polished in turn until if half the work were wet and half dry the eye could detect no difference. alan brought his mother, dame cicely, to the glass-house while wilfrid was still at work on the polishing, and after she had seen the great window they had made for the abbey church at the king's order, she paused to look at the enamel. "tha'lt wear out thy ten finger-bones, lad," said she. "i'm pleased that my cheeses don't have to be rubbed i' that road. they say that women's work's never done, but good wheaten bread now--mix meal and leaven, and salt and water, and the batch'll rise itself." "there's no place for a hasty man in the work of making amail, mother," drawled her son. "nor in most other crafts, to my mind." "my father told me once," quoth wilfrid, smiling, "that no work is worth the doing for ourselves alone. we were making a wall round the sheepfold, and i, being but a lad, wondered at the tugging and bedding of great stones when half the size would ha' served. he wasn't a stout man neither--it was the spring before he died. he told me it was 'for the honor of the land.' i can see it all now--the silly sheep straying over the sweet spring turf, gray old pincher guarding them, the old roman wall that we could not ha' grubbed up if we would, and our wall joining it, to last after we were dead. that bit o' wall's been a monument to me all these years." "you're not one to scamp work whatever you're at," guy declared heartily, "but that cup's due to be finished by to-morrow." when the wreath of blossoms was in place around the shallow golden bowl, the smaller garland around the base, and the stem was encircled with bands of ruby, azure and emerald, it was a chalice fit for the queen of fairyland if she were also a sussex lass. brother basil, whose eye was never at fault, pronounced it perfect. it was not like anything else that they had made, but that, he said, was no matter. "when abbot suger of st. denys made his master-works," guy observed as he put away his tools for the night, "he did not bring workmen from byzantium; he taught frenchmen to do their own work. and an englishman is as good as a frenchman any day." the watchword when from the lonely beacon height the leaping flame flared high, when bells rang out into the night where ships at anchor lie, there orderly in all men's sight, with sword or pike in hand, stood serf and craftsman, squire and knight for the honor of the land. when war had passed, and peace at last ruled over earth and sky, the bonds of ancient law held fast,- the faith which cannot die. ah, call us aliens though you may- we hear and understand, the deathless watchword wakes to-day,- the honor of the land! xxii cockatrice eggs how tomaso the physician and basil the scribe held the keys of empire brother basil and tomaso of padua sat in the glass-house crypt, with an oaken chest heavily bound with iron between them. it had been brought in, and the ropes about it loosened, by sweating varlets who looked with awe at the crucibles, retorts, mortars, braziers, furnaces, beakers and other paraphernalia of what they believed to be alchemy. they had not agreed about the contents of that coffer. samkin held that it was too heavy to be anything but gold. hob maintained that if these wise men could make gold there was no point in sending them a chest full. tom dowgate ended the argument by inquiring which of them had ever handled gold enough to judge its weight, and reminding them of the weight of a millstone when tugged up hill. it was gold, however. when doors were bolted and windows shuttered the two philosophers remained silent for a few moments, tomaso stroking his white beard, brother basil fingering his rosary. then the paduan reached forward and tilted back the lid. under a layer of parchment, leather and tow scraps used for packing, the bezants lay snug and orderly beneath, shining significantly in the light of the bronze lamp. there was coin enough in that chest to turn the scale, perhaps, in the next war in christendom,--so the chancellor had said when he saw it go. brother basil weighed one of the bright new-minted pieces on his finger-end, thoughtfully. "i wonder what this bit of metal will do in england," he mused. "strange--that a thing so easily destroyed should have such power over the hearts of men." "it is like a devil," said the unperturbed physician. "he does not come inside a man's heart unless he is invited. gold as you will employ it means the upbuilding of those crafts that make men--not serfs. we shall make our treasure instead of hiring troopers to steal it, if your schools prosper." brother basil sighed. "i hope so. it is hard to see pages of priceless wisdom, scribed and illumined by loving and patient labor, scattered to the winds in the sack of a town. it made my soul ache to hear the monks of ireland speak of the past. i believe that the king means to protect the irish abbeys, but this is a hard age for a peacemaker." "the plantagenets were never scantly supplied with brains," observed tomaso dryly. "i think, myself, that the king will use the sword only to enforce the law, and that the robber barons are going to have a sad time of it henceforth. perhaps henry is more in tune with the age than you think. frederick barbarossa is coming to grips with the lombard cities, and it will be mailed knight against commune this time. meanwhile, let us get to work." the gold was unpacked and hidden safely in the hollow of the wall behind the turning stone. when the younger men arrived the chest was carried up the narrow stair and refilled with various precious or fragile things which it was well to have out of the way. the furnaces were set alight and the working day began. a fairy spell seemed to possess the fires and the crucibles. brother basil, working at a medallion of enamel, gave a delighted exclamation as he held up the finished work. the red roses of saint dorothea were like elfin blossoms. "the saint herself might have come from alexandria to help us," he said. guy, who never spared trouble, had been finishing a chalice begun before his recent journey to the south. even the critical eye of the abbot found no flaw in its beauty. the little group of artists had worked free from the oriental stiffness and unreality of their first models. their designs were conventional, but the working out was like the quaintly formal primness of wild flowers in garlands. the traditional shape might be much the same, but there was a living freshness and grace, a richness of color and strength of line, which were an improvement on the model. alan, who seldom talked of an idea until he had tried it out, betook himself to a corner and began doing odd things with his blowpipe. the others went to work on a reliquary, and paid no attention to him until their work was well under way. then there was a chorus of admiration. the sheet of glass just ready for the annealing was of the true heavenly azure that brother basil had tried in vain to get. "you kept the rule, i hope?" inquired the monk with some anxiety. "we cannot lose that glass now that we have it." alan shifted from one foot to the other. "it wasn't my rule,--that is, not all of it," he answered bluntly. "i read a part on this torn page here, and it seemed to me that i might work out the rest by this," he showed a chalked formula on the wall. "i tried it, and it came right." tomaso caught up the scrap of parchment. "what?" he said sharply. "where did this come from?" it was a piece that had been used for the packing of the gold. parchment was not cheap, and all the bits had been swept into a basket. although covered with writing, they could be scraped clean and used again. the paduan bent over the rubbish and picked out fragment after fragment, comparing them with keen interest. "no harm is done," he said as he met alan's troubled gaze, "there may be something else worth keeping here. at any rate you shall make more blue glass. keep the formula safe and secret." there are days in all men's work which are remembered while memory endures--hours when the inspiration of a new thought is like a song of gladness, and the mind forgets the drag of past failure. the little group in the abbey glass-house and the adjoining rooms where the goldsmiths worked, were possessed by this mood of delight. the chalice that guy had finished, the deep azure glass and the reliquary represented more real achievement than they had to show for any day in the past six months. there was just the difference that separates the perfect from the not quite perfect. their dreams were coming true. the young men walked over the fields to supper at the abbey farm, as usual, and dame cicely, as usual, stood in the door to greet them. [illustration: "'and there goes what would seat the king of england on the throne of the cæsars,' quoth tomaso"--_page 291_] "how goes the work, lads?" she asked, and then caught alan by the shoulder, crying, "no need to answer. i know by the face on thee. what hast been doing to make it shine so?" "only finished a piece o' work, mother," said padraig with a grin. "it takes some men a long time to do that. if they would bide just this side of a masterpiece they'd save 'emselves trouble. but they will spend all their force on the last step." "aye," said alan, "better leap clean over the strid while you're about it." and for once padraig had no more to say. oddly enough brother basil also thought of the strid that night--the deep and dangerous whirlpool in the grim north country had haunted him ever since he saw it. he and tomaso came back, after dark, to the crypt, and spread out the torn manuscripts by the light of two flambeaux in the wall. none of the pages were whole, and the script was in latin, arabic, greek and italian, and not all in the same handwriting. both believed that in searching the heap for secrets of their arts they had stumbled on something dangerous. "i believe i know where these came from," tomaso said, when they had patched together three or four pages. "they are part of the scripts of archiater of byzantium, who was taken for a wizard in goslar ten years ago. i thought that all his books were burned. there was talk enough about it." "but what are these prescriptions?" asked the monk, puzzled. "you would know by this time," said the paduan grimly, "if that flame-crested imp of yours, padraig, had been the one to experiment. by following the directions on this bit of vellum he might have blown us all into the other world. luckily only three of these formulæ are of that nature. the others are quite safe for your young disciples to play with. but these we will keep to ourselves." he laid a stained brownish piece of sheepskin apart from the others and two smaller ones beside it. "these are directions for the manufacture of aqua regia, spanish gold, and something which archiater called apples of sodom. of a certainty they are fruit of the tree of knowledge, those apples." brother basil had lost color. this really was a trifle too near necromancy to be pleasant. spanish gold was a saracen invention, said to be made of most unholy materials, and he had heard of a wizard being carried bodily off on the wind after dealing in the others. "we will carry on our experiments," tomaso continued, "in the cellars of my tower, if you please. the young ones will be only too glad to be rid of us. if any one meddled here we should risk all we have done and the lives of our pupils. if we make any blunders working by ourselves--well--i sometimes think that i have lived a long time already." the disciples were too well trained to ask any questions, but they were somewhat mystified by the proceedings which ensued. an underground chamber straitly walled in with masonry was fitted up, and the smells that clung to the garments of brother basil when he emerged were more like brimstone than anything else. tomaso was never seen at all. meanwhile the newly discovered formulæ for glass and enamel work had been turned over to the workers in the glass-house, with permission to buy whatever material was needed. padraig and guy went to london, and came back with precious packets of rare gums, dyes, minerals, oils and salts, not to be found or made at the abbey. meanwhile the monk and the physician worked with absorbed intentness at their crucibles and stills. there was a slight explosion one evening, and a country lout of the neighborhood told of it. next day a neighboring farmer ventured to ask padraig what was going on in the ruined tower. "why," said padraig soberly, "we are raising a brood of hobgoblins for the king. did ye not know?" the making of sulphuric acid, nitric acid and their compounds would have been risky business in any age, with the primitive apparatus that the two investigators had. they were furthermore made cautious by the fact that they did not know what might happen if they made the least error. it was midnight after a long and nerve-racking day when they became satisfied that they had the secrets of at least three perilous mixtures in the hollow of their hands. "i think the king would give seven such chests as the one he sent, if he knew what we know," said brother basil musingly. "he has the value of that chest already, in the rose window and the great window, the monstrance, the chalice and the cups," tomaso answered, his sense of money values undimmed. "they are as good in their way as limoges itself can do." "i wish that we had tidings from london," said the monk thoughtfully. "if lombardy loses in this war the emperor will not stop there. he has said that he will obey no pope on earth, only saint peter and the others in heaven. he is neither to hold nor to bind, that man." "henry does not want to fight--that is certain," said tomaso. "he desires only to keep for his children what he has already--anjou, normandy, aquitaine; and most of all england. it would take a greater than the conqueror to rob the plantagenets of this kingdom." "what do you think will happen in lombardy?" asked the other. "the league of lombard cities will fight to the death," said tomaso quietly. "the communes are fighting for their lives, and cornered wolves are fierce. neither sicily nor france is on frederick's side, although they may be, if he wins. if he can get henry the lion of saxony to fight under his banner, it may turn the scale." "and henry the lion married our henry's daughter matilda," said brother basil. tomaso nodded. "without saxony," the paduan added, "i know that not more than two thousand men will follow barbarossa into italy, and not more than half are mailed knights. the lombard army is more or less light cavalry and infantry. here in this cellar we have such weapons as no king has dreamed of--blazing leaping serpents, metal-devouring and poison-breathing spirits, pomegranates full of the seeds of destruction. these--in the hands of the communes----" "would turn christendom into the kingdom of satan," said brother basil as the physician paused. "if we were to give the secret to henry's clerks, or even if we ourselves handled the work in london tower, how long would it be before treachery or thievery carried it overseas? are we to spread ruin over the world?" "i thought you would see it as i did," said tomaso smiling. the ground vibrated to the tread of hoofs, and a horn sounded outside the window. "that is ranulph," said tomaso. "i thought he might come to-night. he will have news." as ranulph came up the path, travel-dusty and weary, lights twinkled out in the abbey and the abbey farm. "the emperor has lost," said the troubadour. "there was a battle at legnano, and the german knights scattered the italian cavalry at the first onset, but when they met the infantry massed about the carocchio they broke. the emperor was wounded and fled. without henry of saxony the battle was lost before it began. they say that there will be a treaty at venice. the communes have won." "come here, my son," said tomaso, turning back into the tower. "we have found an armory of new and deadly weapons. you have heard of archiater's apples? we can make them. shall we give the plantagenets to eat of the tree of knowledge?" ranulph's eyes darkened and narrowed. his quick mind leaped forward to the consequences of such a revelation. "no," he answered. "too much evil ambition lives among normans. it might be safe with the king--and maybe with richard, for he loves chivalry and knightly honor--but john loves nothing but his own will. let us have peace in christendom while we can." "shall we burn the parchment then?" asked brother basil. "nay--keep it in cipher. let a few trusted men know the key." "we will trust our lads," brother basil said. "let us ask them." alan and padraig, wilfrid, guy, and david, came up the path. brother basil explained the discovery. they had already heard the news of the lombard victory from giovanni, who had ridden with the troubadour and stopped at the abbey farm. "what shall we do with these mysteries?" tomaso asked, holding out one of the deadly little grenades. "you must remember that some one else may find out the secret without our help. it is true that the man who did would risk being burned for a wizard in some places; still, there is little that men will not dare in the search for knowledge." "let them find it out then," spoke padraig in sudden heat. "we have had enough of war in our time. let us kill this cockatrice in the egg." "these would pay some debts,"--alan's hard young north-country face grew stern. he was thinking of tales which angelo had told him in his boyhood. "god can pay debts without money," said brother basil gently. "we are not ready," guy averred. "we need time to train men and to let the land breathe. after that it may be safe to use the secret--not now." "that cat's best in a sack," david commented shrewdly. "padraig is right," said wilfrid. "we have had enough of war in our time. we will keep this monster prisoned." they came to an agreement. padraig was to make copies in cipher of the formulæ. after ten years, or on his deathbed should he die within that time, each might give the master-words and the rules to some comrade who could be trusted. they were all to swear never to use their knowledge for gain, or ambition, or vanity, but for the good of their craft, the glory of god and the honor of the land. "before we destroy that which we have made," said brother basil, "we will show you in part what it can do." metals dissolved like wet salt. wood and leather were bitten through as by gnawing rats. a fire was kindled on the old tower, and a cone-like swarm of giant wasps of fire went spluttering and boiling up into the darkness. the apples of sodom were planted under a troublesome ledge of rock, and reduced it to rubble. "and there goes what would seat the king of england on the throne of the cæsars," quoth tomaso. the last wavering flare was dying into the night, and he stood with ranulph and padraig on the top of the tower, under the stars. "he might have sat there before, if he had chosen," mused ranulph. padraig was silent. matteo had fallen beside the carocchio, and his heart was sad. tomaso laid a hand on ranulph's shoulder. "an empire is a forest of slow nurture, beloved of my soul," he said gently, "and it does--not--grow--by--conflagrations." transcriber's notes: the following corrections have been made: on page 46/47 two paragraphs were joined together. (he answered, a trifle defiantly, "perhaps i do.) on page 239 the quotation marks were moved from the end of the stanza to the beginning of the next, (take a chance for belphoebe's fame!) ("they live in valhalla). spelling and pagenumbers in the tables of contents and illustrations, and in the captions, have been corrected to match the rest of the book. otherwise the original has been preserved, including archaic, unusual and inconsistent spelling, especially in the poems, and inconsistent hyphenation. 